India, March 10 -- A 45-year-old client in therapy tells me, "Navigating relationships has become messy. I feel people get offended very quickly. Sometimes I wonder if offence is the new defence. It seems like people's capacity for differing opinions has reduced." Another 35-year-old client tells me, "I feel we have become less sensitive to others around us but are sensitive and touchy about how others treat us." It's ironical, isn't it? What both these clients are referring to is a theme that consistently shows up in therapy sessions. My sense is that we have become sensitive and more fragile than ever. What follows or is linked to fragility is a belief that people are operating from a place of ill intention. I remember a friend of mine telling me, "No one gets up in the morning thinking that they will make my life difficult." I often think back to that statement and wonder if our sensitivity to others does tie in with the intentions that we associate with them. Given how volatile the world feels, combined with our natural tendency for negativity bias-the tendency to dwell on and remember negative experiences more than the positive-it's worthwhile to reflect on how we interpret other people's intentions. It's important to walk with one's eyes and ears open and yet ask ourselves what would happen if we look for good intentions consciously. I often tell clients to notice small acts of kindness, positive intentions from a stranger, or a family member. My fear is that our fragility is showing up in ways where people feel tenuous and also experience the world as a place that is not trustworthy. I feel this is stopping people from talking to strangers, smiling back at someone on the road, going out on dates or engaging with others when on a trip or public transport. A certain degree of hypervigilance, along with an inability to offer generosity of trust, is possibly making us feel isolated and wary of others. As a therapist, I see this reflect in a pattern where people are investing less in relationships, whether it's friendships, family or love and spending more time alone or with their devices. This is showing up in acts of avoidance and not engaging with life. It doesn't help that human beings are spending more time chatting with AI bots who are trained to be agreeable, always say the right words and interact in a format where there is no friction. I often wonder if we are falling for the illusion of safety provided by AI bots. Research does show that our obsession with perfectionism has increased in the past few years. I wonder if it stops people from exploring life, and possibly creates pressure to not make mistakes. As a result, we hold back, don't engage with life and get caught in the pattern of collecting information, cues rather than take calculated risks. This is also reflected in acts of gentle parenting - where sometimes parents are unconsciously overaccommodating children's needs, not setting guardrails, forgetting that children and adults have capacity to self-soothe. Adulting requires engaging with the world, rather than being a passive witness and building capacity to filter feedback and yet tolerating discomfort. Discomfort is not a bad space, it's an in-between space where we can hold what is said, pause, evaluate and then choose how to respond. Our discomfort and feeling insulted are not the same thing. As we have gotten older, all of us have figured that adulting is a reminder that we are constantly learning, making mistakes and then finding ways to repair. I have found that learning to carry the idea of my own self lightly helps with being kind to myself and extend generosity of trust of others. Holding space for our imperfections and remembering our capacity for change, self-soothing and still not losing trust in others' intentions possibly can help us build a world that feels safer and more open to genuine conversation....