Have you ever felt a little lost? As if your life were a ship following its path, only for an unexpected storm to completely change its course? I believe that, at some point in life, you have probably come across this metaphor. Perhaps, I cannot even call it a “metaphor,” because it reflects reality so well.
We live in a world where everything moves so fast. We have to be quick to deliver results. We have to be quick to move forward in our careers. We have to be quick to respond, to think, and to act. Otherwise, someone else will certainly take our place or our voice. We live in a constant state of alert and urgency, as though we were always trying to reach the finish line of some Olympic marathon.
And a year ago, I felt consumed by that world of constant speed. And yes, I felt lost. My God, what a relief it is to freely write these words. I had just finished my degree, many personal changes were happening in my life, and so many possibilities stood before me. What was I supposed to do, especially when I felt like a mirror shattered into a thousand pieces?
That was when the opportunity to take part in a European Solidarity Corps volunteering programme with the Polish Robert Schuman Foundation, in Warsaw, Poland, appeared. Through this text, I could tell you many things about this experience, or explain why I would encourage you to live it too. However, I would rather speak about how it helped me learn how to find myself.
As soon as my volunteering journey began, that constant rush slowly started to disappear. I was given time, space, and new energy to take on not only a professional project at the 35th Bolesław Prus High School, but also a personal one, alongside an extraordinary international team of volunteers.
And it is about them that I would like to speak, because these were the people who embraced me and made me realize that perhaps I was never truly lost. I was simply waiting to slowly find myself. And that is what life is really about: slowly building ourselves, calmly or more messily, happily or sadly, with confidence or with doubt. We are all on a long journey, and the pressure for immediate results, or for decisions that seem as though they will shape us forever, can become self-destructive. I never want to become a bomb waiting for someone to press the detonator from afar.
I came to this realization because this experience is, above all, an experience focus on you and on the people who are part of it alongside you. You move to an unfamiliar country and have to figure things out on your own. You make your life happen, even while navigating a language and culture so new that they will inevitably make you stumble. You begin to realize that there are many different ways of looking at life. And that diversity shows you that things are not always as linear as they may seem when you only know yourself and those who have lived lives similar to your own. You hear stories about friendship, love, and family that feel strikingly similar to yours, even when they come from people whose homes are in lands whose letters make no sense to your mind. And somehow, that makes you feel part of a family you never imagined you would belong to.
This experience taught me about the calmness and beauty of growing, together with others and at the same time in confrontation with who I am. And how beautiful it is to witness my own growth. I also realize that I am this mixture of past, present, and future that makes me smile as soon as I finish writing these words for you to read and to know that you are not alone either.
From António Félix – Schuman Volunteer 2025/2026.