Are You Running Late? – ElPropósito4 min de lectura

Late for what, exactly?

Photo by José Martín Ramírez C on Unsplash

Lately I keep hearing "I feel like I’m running late", and it has really caught my attention. Punctuality is a habit I’ve cultivated with great discipline all my life, yet this post leaves punctuality and showing up on time aside. My subject is something constant in the way we live, and how mismanaging it erodes our ability to reach our goals. Read on.

We’re late for nothing. The change sweeping every corner of the world moves at the speed of light, and it stirs up all kinds of emotions, especially that "I’m already late" feeling. Time is a scarce resource, and with so many possible needs, focus and deadlines are two very useful tools for feeling we stand on solid ground.

Late for where? The question implies a direction. Knowing our own north tells us how to adapt to change and what we can take from it. The opposite is a complete lack of clarity about our own lives and, above all, constant uncertainty where nothing we do lines up with our values, our wishes or, above all, our Purpose.

On the paths that lead to our own north, I like to recall a line from Joan Manuel Serrat’s song "Cantares": "Traveler, there is no road, the road is made by walking." As long as we go through life guided by that inner compass, our Life Purpose, we’ll have the focus we need so badly and, above all, something more: a sense of meaning.

Even when we work with focus (Purpose) and deadlines, we may reach the end of a road and find little or nothing, which is quite normal in today’s volatile world of dizzying change. What we will find are valuable lessons for the next road that keeps leading us to our True North, because on any path, every action will have meaning. What we’ll never find is the phrase "I got here too late."

Feeling late for everything comes with losing focus. It’s part of a constant urge to stay busy for its own sake, with no meaning. Walking paths that always head toward what gives our life meaning opens a vast opportunity to discover every resource we need to ride the great wave of change.

So where, and for what, will we be late?

Warm regards and all the best,

Rodrigo Baccaro

This week’s VELA:

• What I’ve been Viewing: The press launch of the novel Tiempos Recios. This YouTube video is the launch of Mario Vargas Llosa’s book Tiempos Recios (Harsh Times). I recommend watching it after reading the book. It’s a historical novel full of secrets, conspiracies and intrigue from my country at crucial moments in its recent history.
• What I’ve been Listening to: The real relationship between age and the chances of success. A podcast and video I really enjoyed. It busts many myths about age, especially one involving Einstein himself. I recommend it 200%.
• What I’ve been Reading: I read several books at once. Tiempos Recios by Mario Vargas Llosa, a good book I recommend to every Guatemalan. I’m sure I missed the chance to meet Vargas Llosa while he was in Guatemala doing his research. I’ll have another chance. I was also reading the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, and this powerful passage stood out: "Never forget that no one loses any other life than the one they are living, nor lives any other than the one they lose. So the longest life and the shortest come to the same thing. The present is equal for all, so the loss is equal too. All that slips away is the present moment, never the past or the future. The one who dies very young loses the same as one who has lived many years. Both lose only the present moment, because they cannot lose what they do not have." Marcus Aurelius
• What I’ve been Learning: Customer focus. After reading Reinventing the Organization, and since customer focus is one of any organization’s core capabilities, I found this wonderful course, from Harvard as always, and I recommend it.

Author: Rodrigo Baccaro

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