Brevity – ElPropósito4 min de lectura

Finitude as a teacher of purpose and serenity

Life gives no warning before it stops. One day we breathe with the certainty that there’s still time, and the next we realize that time was never promised. That sudden awareness lands as a dull blow that forces us to rethink everything we take for granted.

The Stoics knew this with a clarity that makes us uncomfortable today. "Memento mori," they reminded themselves each morning: "Remember that you will die." For them it was a liberating discipline, free of anything morbid. Keeping the inevitable end in view let them live without wasting days on trivia. Death was their teacher. It reminds us that life is on loan to us, and the interest on that loan is paid in full attention and consistent choices.

I understood this at a very deep level when my son, Juan Diego, died. That experience showed me the true weight of the Stoic refrain "memento mori"… remember that you will die. Today that understanding, far from hardening me, lets me look at death with more serenity and feel the fleeting nature of life more intensely. The pain remains, and now it sits in its proper place: a constant reminder that each day is a gift we can’t take for granted.

Accepting that life is brief radically changes the value we place on our choices. Hours spent on matters dragged out for no reason, on projects that aren’t ours, or on a version of success disconnected from our true purpose start to look like what they are: lost opportunities. Finitude clarifies. It makes us tell the urgent from the essential, and what glitters for a moment from what endures in the memory of the people who matter to us.

Living with this awareness makes you selective, and it needn’t make you grim. It means guarding time as the scarcest resource we have and aligning it with whatever gives our life real meaning. Purpose is the rudder that becomes indispensable precisely when the waves come up; it’s no luxury reserved for calm days. Anyone who has decided where their life is headed finds strength even in uncertainty, because they know every step counts.

Real freedom arrives when we stop putting off the life we want to live. Postponing out of fear, comfort or the illusion that "there’ll be more time tomorrow" is the subtlest form of self-betrayal. Brevity invites us to act today with the seriousness we’d bring if we knew it was our last day, from the calm of someone who has chosen consciously. Panic has no place in it.

Ultimately, a well-lived life is measured by its depth: how much presence, integrity and genuine contribution we manage to pack into the time we’re given. People who understand this walk with a firm sense of direction, without frantic rushing. They know the most valuable legacy is built from the daily alignment of what we say, what we do and who we are.

The death of someone close reminds us we all share the same condition. No one is exempt. That reality can wake us up. It takes us back to basics: love better, work with more meaning, forgive faster and move with more resolve toward what really matters.

What are you putting off today that you’d stop putting off if you knew your time was shorter than you think? Are you living so that, if this were your last year, you could look back with the serenity of having been true to your purpose?

Warm regards and all the best,

Rodrigo Baccaro

P.S.

Dear Huicho:

You were a man of flight, of intense life and of loyalty. Today I wish you a bright, full and peaceful return to Ithaca. We know this isn’t a final goodbye; we’ll see each other again soon, where time no longer limits or separates. I ask that from there, hand in hand with my grandparents, my son, my family and your family, you intercede for all of us who still have a few flight hours left down here.

To my soul brother, my dear friend Beto, to you and your whole beloved family, my deepest condolences. I share the pain of this irreparable loss, and also the certainty that Huicho’s legacy (his vitality, his dedication and his example) will live on in each of you.

May the faith and love that unite you bring you comfort at this time….. With all my love, Rodrigo

"A friend is yourself in another skin"… Atahualpa Yupanqui

Author: Rodrigo Baccaro

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