Purpose and Freedom – ElPropósito3 min de lectura

Two master keys that always go together

Photo by Ana Paula Grimaldi on Unsplash

Obstacles will always be sized to our abilities and to our attitude toward solving them. Many challenges may look enormous, but there’s one thing no challenge can erase or force us to set aside: attitude. Attitude has two big parts: everything that’s in our hands to do, and the will to do it. The first spark of will is a force so powerful and resourceful that it has a name: purpose. Purpose is, and always will be, the spark that lights the fire to take on any challenge. With a clear purpose, we know whether the giant in front of us deserves our focus. So how do freedom and purpose equip us to take on challenges?

Following the Pareto rule, it’s very likely that a few challenges account for most of the giants we face. So only a handful of problems call for one single question: is what I want to solve in line with my purpose? Is what we want to achieve in tune with ours? If the answer is no, we clearly shouldn’t spend energy and time on it. If it’s a resounding yes, we’ve found that first spark. It’s one way to think it through.

A person’s life project consists mainly of their freedom to make decisions while respecting the life projects of others. So purpose and freedom go hand in hand. They’re closely linked, and they’re great pillars of societies, companies and people who take real responsibility for moving their projects and lives forward. That’s how highly effective organizations know each of their people’s life projects inside out, and how every member fully realizes that their life project can work if, and only if, they share the organization’s life project: its purpose.

Acting in freedom and guided by a clear purpose, we’re always able to 1) identify the obstacles we truly want to face and get past them, 2) decide whether they’re worth our time and resources, and 3) have the resources, at the very least the willpower, to come through. The interference along the way often reaches the root, undermining a person’s or an organization’s freedom and purpose. What can’t be undermined is the attitude with which we face life, because that’s the last of the freedoms, as Viktor Frankl, or the great Stoics, would put it.

Purpose and freedom go hand in hand. On freedom, Alberto Benegas Lynch says it "is unrestricted respect for the life project of others…". To know our life project, we have to know our purpose. For an organization to truly know why it’s in this world and for whom, it has to know its corporate purpose. Imposing a purpose is an attack on anyone’s freedom. So we must respect, and make sure others respect, that freedom comes before all else. With that as our base, we’ll always have the platform to know why we’re on this planet.

What’s your life project, and what are you doing to carry it out?

Warm regards and all the best,

Rodrigo Baccaro

• P.S. This week’s VELA:
• What I was watching: Cimientos poco explorados de la sociedad abierta (Little-explored foundations of the open society). These interviews, lectures and conversations are worth their weight in gold
  – What I was listening to: Work and Study JAZZ – Gentle Piano JAZZ For Focus and Concentrate. A great playlist for background music while working
  – What I was reading: Lives of the Stoics: The Art of Living from Zeno to Marcus Aurelius. Ryan Holiday, like Tim Ferriss, is one of my favorite authors on these subjects
  – What I was learning: Andrew Huberman: Do This For 90 Seconds For 7 Days. Andrew Huberman is my discovery of 2022

Author: Rodrigo Baccaro

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