About the End of the Year

The year 2025 bids farewell with a mix of personal achievements and failures. Anyone honest enough will admit that not all their goals have been met. Changes in direction, alterations of goals, and abandonments of projects are more common than Internet personalities want to make it seem.

We must agree that failures should diminish over time, especially when we are self-critical and seek improvement, or simply when we are just lucky. Luck is a preponderant and almost imperceptible factor in our lives. We want to attribute more merit to the smart decisions we make than to mere chance.

My year of 2025 has been under the effect of this indifferent pendulum of fortune. Achievements? I had quite a few. I started a postgraduate program at a Federal University, published my first article (although timid and mediocre), participated in academic events, took courses I had always wanted, passed with top grades, and worked hard to learn things I had never intensely studied before (elements of mathematics, physics, and languages). Moving beyond the academic scope, in the professional realm, I completed projects, maintained my business, and employed people. Failures? I can say they are consequences of the imbalance of having dedicated too much to other areas of life: I did not sell enough, my company underwent an existential crisis that put its future in jeopardy. I made poor business decisions and was not firm enough in situations where I had every right to be.

But I don't want to go over what happened or didn't happen this year. The summary of this reckoning is as follows: I am grateful for everything that happened. As a student of Stoicism, I know that what happened occurred because it had to be so. That which escaped the reins of my control is either because I allowed it or is the result of chance and, therefore, should not affect me. That which we cannot exert any power over should not be a subject of our worries. Recognizing this is an exercise in reflection and self-knowledge.

Life is Struggle

What I advocate here is not passivity in the circumstances of life, but reclaiming control over life, both regarding the paths it takes and the effects we allow ourselves to feel in light of the outcomes of chance. Passivity is a harm and a counter to life. In this sense, I love the poem "Canção do Tamoio" by Gonçalves Dias that sings about life as it is: struggle, combat, failure or success:

Canção do Tamoio

Don’t cry, my son;
Don’t cry; for life
Is a hard struggle: Living is to fight.
Life is combat,
That brings down the weak,
That the strong, the brave,
Can only exalt.

One day we live!
The man who is strong
Fears not death;
Only fears to flee;
In the bow that bends
There’s a certain prey,
Whether it be tapir,
Condor, or tapir.

The strong, the coward
Envies his deeds
To see him in battle
Proud and fierce;
And the timid old men
In grave counsel,
With their foreheads bowed,
Listen to his voice!

If you dominate, you live;
If you die, you rest
In the remembrance of your own,
In the voice of the future.
Do not care for life!
Be brave, be strong!
Do not flee from death,
For death will come!

And since you are my son,
Dress yourself with my pride;
You were born Tamoio,
You will be brave.
Be a hard warrior,
Robust, tough,
The shield of the Tamoios
In war and in peace.

Your war cry
Should thunder in the ears
Of enemy fright
By vile commotion;
And they tremble to hear it
Worse than the hiss
Of the swift arrows,
Worse than thunder.

And the mother in these huts,
Wanting her raised children
In the law of terror;
May your name speak to them,
That the enemy people
Perhaps may not hear
Without weeping, without pain!

But if fortune,
Betraying your steps,
Throws you into the ties
Of the treacherous enemy!
In the final hour
Remember your deeds,
Calm in gestures,
Fearless, bold.

And fall like the trunk
Of one struck by lightning,
Broken, torn
Over a vast expanse;
Thus dies the strong!
In the act of death
He triumphs, conquers
A higher crest.

Train your weapons,
Penetrate into life:
Heavy or dear,
Living is to fight.
If the harsh combat
Brings down the weak,
It can only exalt the strong, the brave.

My learning from this poem is to live the best life I can, without wavering and fighting for what I desire, without fear, without retreat. Let 2026 come, and let us take control of our lives!

Happy new year!