Translator: Francisco Zattoni Reviewer: Theresa Ranft Some may say that happiness is to have what you desire. Here's the first problem: this is impossible. You desire because you don't yet have.
And when you do have, you no longer desire it. Desire is always for something that is lacking, for something that we don't have. The energy required to pursue what we want always finds its great motivation in what is lacking.
But of course, someday, as not everything is always so cruel nor harsh, you get what you had wanted for so long. And when you succeed, you no longer desire it. you don't love it anymore.
Toys received at Christmas are stored in the trunk of desires, murdered by presence, killed by consumption, and children want what they don't yet have. Society cannot let us desire any old way. This strength we have to go after what we don't have cannot manifest itself in chaos.
Every society knows that desires need to be organized, directing energy towards things which don't cause problems, towards genuine trophies, towards achievements that bring order to society. In school, we learn to desire what we don't have. I remember, in primary school, which were the first four years of grade school, my teacher Maria das Graças said, "Primary is a preparation for secondary education.
" We then waited four years to get into middle school. "It’ll be fun in middle school," she promised. "It’ll be cooler in middle school.
In middle school, we'll have more freedom. " Then, when middle school came, we had all the reasons to believe that everything would be beautiful, pleasant and happy. But they changed the coordinator, and in came teacher Maria das Graças, saying, "Look, the four years in middle school are a preparation for high school.
High school is in another building, it's even cooler and there's no need for uniform. You can choose either human, exact or biological science. You'll already be adults, free, and therefore happy.
" It was just four more years to wait. Then came high school. During the first days, we went to school believing that happiness had finally arrived, that it'd be awesome, life would be beautiful!
There'd be pleasure, enjoyment and happiness. But now, we had this enormous coordinator, a huge man called Mario Zan, who said, "In high school, there’s no more fooling around, you have to prepare yourselves for the college entrance exam. " We spent three more years - that's already eleven - desiring, and everybody telling us "when.
" "When" this happens, "when" that happens, "when" you go there there'll be happiness. We get to college, and the first days seemed to keep the promise. Wow, there was the freshman's week - freshman pranks, drink and a lot of sex.
It was really cool and happy. But, after three days, we started going down the corridors, internship here, there, everywhere. Veterans saying, "Dude, without an internship you're screwed.
If you don't get an internship, it won't work out, you'll drop behind, you won't get any work, you'll end up in the gutter, never to work anymore! " So you go after the internship with fire in your belly, until you finally manage to get it. You go home euphoric.
"Happiness has arrived, I've got an internship! " On the first day of internship they treat you like an "intern. " Then you realize that what they told you isn't that cool.
I've even got a good intern joke. A great president of a company gathers his vice presidents and asks a question, a charade, a riddle. He says, "Listen here, what I do is for pleasure or is it for work?
You have 24 hours to give me your answer. " The VPs gather their directors, gather their foremen, their employees. "Listen, what the boss does here, is it for pleasure or work?
" The VPs gather their directors, and this goes down through the company, through all the company's hierarchy. Until finally, at the end of the corridor, there's an intern. He has piles of work, telephones in each ear, he has mountains of work to do.
Someone goes up to him and says, "Hey, you, I need an answer. What the boss does here, is it for pleasure or work? " Then he says, "Of course it's for pleasure.
If it was work, I'd be the one doing it. " (Laughter) So you get the internship, and they say to you, "If you don't get hired, your internship will be useless. " And since you're cool and courageous, one day you get hired, you get your college degree.
You go home and say, "I've been preparing for 16 years. " You give your graduation speech, and say, "It's been sixteen years, but happiness has finally come. I have a job and I have, believe it or not, a college degree.
" On the first day of work, you're greeted by the boss. The boss turns to you and says, "The company has 15 levels. You're on G-15.
" (Laughter) G-15 is lower than an intern. There isn't even space for you to put your bicycle in the parking lot. You're worthless.
Then you say, "So what can I do to rise up? " He says, "You have to set goals. Set goals and create results.
" Then you ask, "What exactly is a goal? " He says, "Goals are like carrots that run fast. You run, catch the carrot, and give it to me.
I give you another carrot to catch and you go on reaching goals and rising up, to G-14, G-13. . .
it's really cool. " You catch carrots, deliver carrots, catch carrots, deliver carrots, catch carrots, deliver carrots, catch carrots, deliver carrots! You're rising up.
. . Eight years later you meet the same boss at the company's cafeteria and say, "Man, there's one thing I'm curious about.
Where do you put all those carrots? " Amazing! (Laughter) You rise up, up, up.
. . Suddenly, they start calling you using letters.
Letters in English, and everything that's in English is highly prized. You're a CFO, CEO, COO, ICO, CFO. .
. (Laughter) You start to realize that. .
. Wow, there's always someone above you. There's always someone humiliating you.
There's always someone looking at you from above. Then someday they throw a party for you in this Allianz Parque stadium. The day they throw a party for you, you're already screwed.
(Laughter) They'll give you a little plaque that says, "Thank you, carrot chaser. " But now that you're old you'll be replaced by someone younger and more deluded. Someone will even say, "When you retire, it'll be really cool.
" (Laughter) You take the money that’s left, you have a ranch with even a lake, and you fish. At 80, you're at death's door, your family crying around you, and someone will still come along, believe it or not, saying, "No sadness, no sorrow, because the best is yet to come. " (Laughter) You're weakened, helpless.
. . (Applause) you say, "Man, they deceived me for 80 years!
" You hadn't realized that maybe, if you've had some chance to be happy in life it's not when "nothing" happens, but it's here, now, in the corner of this stadium. Happiness is either here or it isn't going to be anywhere else, because life is here. Then, of course, you think that I could have waited for my time to be here.
I could be seated there thinking, "Wow, one more talk. . .
" After I retired from university, this is how I make money. I do this every day, and thankfully my family appreciates it. "So let me go there and do it, get it over with because after lunch there's more.
" Then happiness would be when this has finished and I'd go home to get some rest and eat. You may say, "What a shallow thought! What a poor thought, what an unhappy thought that is waiting for the talk to finish to only then be happy.
How dull! " That's right, but what time do you call "happy hour"? Do you call happy hour Monday at 8 a.
m. or Friday at 6 p. m.
? For you, happy hour is when work finishes. Why don't I have that right?
I'm here working. It'll be great when the talk ends. For now, it's a price I have to pay for happiness.
When everything ends. . .
Then you think, "There's something wrong here. " Of course there is. I could be seated over there, thinking, "I've never been here before.
I'll never speak here again. " Never again, even if everyone comes back here again. We'd be different.
Every instance of life is a magical opportunity, irrecoverable and virginal, absolutely unprecedented and never experienced before. This is the moment I have, in this place, to do the best I can. I have the chance to do better than I did yesterday, and better than the last 30 years of teaching - which was my life.
Why? Because today I'm better than yesterday. Because today I'm more competent than yesterday.
Today I'm better prepared and more experienced than yesterday. I have the chance to do the best in life. And there I was seated, focused, doing the best I could, the talk of my life, the best I've ever done; so that it can be enjoyable, not when it ends, but while it's happening.
And when happiness starts beforehand, it's better for your life. If you need to wait until Friday at 6 p. m.
to be happy in life, then sorry, your life sucks. It's much better when it starts before that, and it will have colored it. Every time you use the moment experienced seeking to do your best, in search of excellence, the full unfoldment of your own essence, the search of your own perfection, which isn't going to happen at the weekend, but right now, because life happens right now - I have the magical moment to use the best words, the best examples, to touch your spirits with maximum force.
And then I'll be making my life full of challenges, colorful and happy. Not when it ends, but right now. I'll greatly regret the moment it ends.
Because if you ask me - and there's no one famous here, this is me - happiness is a little moment of life, a brief moment, that you'd like to repeat. Happiness is that little moment that you don't want to end. But, because it has to end you use your intelligence to repeat it.
It can happen anywhere, it can happen in the cinema. You see Darín in "The Secret in Their Eyes," and think, "Wow, I think I'll come back here with my mom for her to watch this film. " This is a symptom of happiness in the cinema.
You're in the bar, in Aspicuelta street, with someone that you don't know, this person has to leave and you say, "Wait, give me your phone number so I can call you to meet up again. " This is happiness in a bar. There's even that student who on the last day of his course comes to you and says, "Professor, do you think I can attend your classes again next year as a listener?
" So you look at the student and realize that there's just one reason for him to want to do the same course a second time. He has to admit that during the classes, he was happy. And I really hope the same thing has happened here.
Hopefully, you didn't even notice my arrival. Hopefully, you've been conducted by my speech, thinking about your own life and lamenting the fact that the moment has come to say goodbye. Hopefully, you may think that if you had brought your mom along, if you'd been my student, if you'd seen me on the internet, if you'd sought me out before, maybe you'd have anticipated this meeting.
And if one of those things happened, you'd have to admit at this very moment, right now, not later, but now, that you were happy. When life could have lasted a little bit longer, when life could repeat itself someday. Hopefully, it's been this way.
And if it has been this way the goal that I have sought has been reached and accomplished, because there's nothing better, in a place like this, than giving to someone who you've never seen before a tiny moment that this person would like to repeat with you. And if all of us, besides our daily objectives, took the trouble of giving someone near us a moment of our lives that this person would like to repeat someday. .
. Man, together we'd be forming a society infinitely more cooperative, infinitely fairer, more cohesive, more harmonic and happier. Because in the end, what we call Brazil is us.
If we have to improve, it's we who have to do it. If there's something to progress, it's we who have to do that. We're all co-responsible for this.
It's time for us to turn the page and defend, with our conduct and our intelligence, a fairer and better coexistence, which isn't for us, but for those who we love dearly, who didn't ask to be born and are waiting to find, when they start living, a good place of coexistence. Because to live well is to coexist well. Living well is coexisting well with others.
Living well is to find justice for yourself and for others. This is our job. There won't be any superheroes, nor any miraculous solutions, not any great genius to save us.
This job is ours only, to seek happiness through a happy coexistence. I hope that for at least one moment, you've been happy, as I have been, during our moments together. Thank you very much and see you next time.
(Applause) Thank you.
