The Inspiration We Seek – ElPropósito5 min de lectura

After a failure, how do we get back on track?

What is a failure, and how is it different from an obstacle? This week I had the good fortune of going back to the place that was my home for three years of university, the CUCV, this time as a guest speaker on Purpose in Life. I got to taste again the delicious food they prepare with such care for the students, have dinner with current residents, run into old friends who are now priests and stop to visit the Blessed Sacrament, where I prayed so many times for so many reasons. It was a wonderful chance to put into perspective everything that has happened in the 22 years since I first walked into that house. It was also there that I found the inspiration that led me to change the course of my studies completely. At the time it felt like a mix of failure and an opportunity to keep building my future. What gave me the confidence to trust that decision? Read on.

I’ve never been the most patient person. For a long time I was obsessed with results. When something didn’t go the way I expected, I pushed to make it happen at any cost, and I’m sure that for a long time I ran over the feelings and peace of many people. To those I haven’t reached yet, please know that little by little I’ll make amends and, above all, offer you my deepest apologies. Back to inspiration. How do we learn to trust a goal again? How do we get back on course? One of the main reasons I always write about purpose is that I spent a long stretch of my life not knowing what mine was.

As I spoke to so many students about their purpose in life, I kept thinking, "I wish I’d had this chance back then, someone to partner with me in decoding or discovering that powerful sentence." Still, I don’t regret not having it. Today I fully trust that my purpose was always calling me and that it’s what led me to my best decisions. I am who I am because of my decisions. We all are since, as Viktor Frankl put it so well, the last of our freedoms is the freedom to choose. The first spark of inspiration may be the most powerful of all, the one that moves us to decide. It comes before willpower. It’s the Big Bang of everything we want to do. Even so, I believe something comes before that first spark: our purpose in life.

How many organizations and people do I see every day making decisions without a clear purpose? The vast majority. It’s one of the main reasons we lose inspiration after a failure. With a purpose in mind, one failure will follow another, and another, and maybe one more. Yet the ability to get back up doesn’t come from willpower. It comes from having started something with a very clear purpose. Without one, we’ll almost always quit at the first failure. To get back on track we clearly need friends, we need God, a financial boost and many other tools or lifelines to find our way. None of it works unless we can make decisions that come from the core of who we are, decisions grounded in our purpose.

What is your system for finding inspiration again?
What are your habits built on, so you can act every day and stay consistent?
What keeps inspiring you to move forward?

Warm regards,

Rodrigo Baccaro

P.S. 1. I dedicate this post to my parents, for their unconditional support at such an important moment in my life and for trusting that my second spark of inspiration truly matched my purpose. I also dedicate it to all the residents of the CUCV (keep fighting for your dreams and work hard to find your purpose in life) and to all the former residents, wonderful people I was lucky and blessed to meet in such a special spirit of camaraderie. With them I built great friendships and shared good books, good conversations, good games of frontenis, chess and much more. A hug up to heaven for my dear friend Luis (seeing your photo made me so happy). May you intercede for all of us from up there, together with my Juan Diego and the great Don Alberto. Here’s to 100 more years of the Resi.

P.S. 2. This week’s VELA (what I was Watching, Listening to, Reading and Learning):

Watching: Return to Space. A great documentary, full of dreams and truly inspiring, about how people who deeply believe in a goal keep fighting until they achieve it.
Listening to: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. My day is often shaped by my habits (my REMO in the morning and my VELA throughout the day). I used to put on a podcast or video while setting up my morning, and Mozart has become my go-to for starting the day while I get ready.
Reading: Crime and Punishment. I’m still on this book, which I can’t get out of my head. Reading it is no chore for me. It’s a great novel.
Learning: This Is My Life’s Crux. I’ve always admired the work of Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett, but what I admire most is their friendship. What struck me most in this video was their definition of common sense.

Thank you so much for the photo and, above all, for inviting me back home 🙂