The Value of Dreams – ElPropósito4 min de lectura

Photo by Johannes Plenio on Unsplash

"What is life? A frenzy. What is life? An illusion, a shadow, a fiction, and the greatest good is small, for all of life is a dream, and dreams are only dreams." (Pedro Calderón de la Barca). I open with Segismundo’s soliloquy from Life Is a Dream after reflecting on dreams and hopes and what they cost us. It’s easier to think about the cost of our dreams than their value, and by value I mean less the courage to pursue them and more what we finally gain when we achieve something we truly wanted. Why does every objective or goal carry a cost? And what is that cost?

Every race needs a team and a unique, special kind of support. Look at the best teams in any field and you’ll notice something about the support they give the people on the field (assuming whoever is on the field is a team). Those backing them are deeply attuned to the others and know them well. Their empathy runs so deep that they know exactly what kind of support the other person needs. That player is giving everything, with nothing but the goal in mind, so they spend no time or attention on anything except focus and the result they want.

The costs, physical and emotional, that we meet and always will are life’s natural tests, whatever goal we set. Life itself is chaos we want to bring a little order to, and we’ll always meet natural resistance to any change we want to make. That resistance shows up in the hardships we go through and in our moments of greatest stress, anxiety and distress. No objective, however aligned with a purpose, will ever be free of cost. The key is to see the value ahead of time and anticipate seeing and feeling that result within ourselves.

Life is a dream, and the greatest dreams and fictions are the ones that have borne the most fruit for humankind. The freedom we’re born with lets us develop our full potential, and the more aware we become of every interference (especially those costs), the freer we become. That makes us more likely to find happiness in everything we set out to do and to accept hardships, physical and emotional, with gratitude. The greatest team a human being can have is their own confidence, their wisdom and the humility to accept any outside support that comes their way to bring a little order to their journey through this world.

Warm regards,

Rodrigo Baccaro

This week’s VELA (what I was Watching, Listening to, Reading and Learning):
What I was Watching: Cómo educar para que le pasen cosas buenas a tus hijos. I admire Dr. Rojas’s work, and this video (shared by my friend Otto) is striking, especially her courage in comparing the world of screens to the world of drug trafficking. Worth a look
– What I was Listening to: University of Texas at Austin 2014 Commencement Address. This video circulated on social media for a long time and I always skipped it. I don’t know why, but its moment finally came, I listened to the whole thing and every second was worth it. A small task done at the start of the day can make a difference for the rest of it, and I couldn’t agree more
– What I was Learning: Guide to Waking Up Early – Staying Alert and Keeping the Peace. A good video from Jocko Willink, a former Navy SEAL. I loved it because I’m an early riser and always working on habits that serve me every day in every part of my life (hence my VELA and my REMO). I really like a former SEAL’s view on how to prepare, or be prepared, for an important event
– What I was Reading: How To Breathe While Running: It’s a Secret. Today I put Richard Murray’s tips into practice. Running has always been one of the sports I most wanted to master, especially the technique, and breathing (like the million other running topics) has been my Achilles’ heel. Tips like these are valuable