Life has four meanings: to love, to suffer, to struggle and to win. Whoever loves suffers, whoever suffers struggles, whoever struggles wins. If you love deeply, even if you struggle hard, you suffer little, and you always win. And for something new to exist, one must be willing to do something that has never been done.

Robert Anthony said: “You can have anything you want if you are willing to give up the belief that you cannot have it.” For this reason, Bernard Baruch made it his life project: “I cannot turn a desert into a garden in a single day. But I can start with an oasis.” And Henri-Frédéric Amiel: “Living is not about conceiving what must be done, but doing it.” “Hesitating is fine, as long as you then do what you must do” (Bertolt Brecht).

And what we must do, to put it in Baden-Powell’s words, is “Try to leave this world a little better than we found it.”

To succeed in this commitment, there is a recipe, according to Phil Bosmans: “Take the obvious, add a cup of brains, a generous pinch of imagination, a bucketful of courage and daring, stir well and bring to the boil.” It may sound like a joke, this recipe, but it makes sense. Because “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbour, catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore, dream, discover!” (H. Jackson Brown Jr.). “Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss it, you will land among the stars” (Les Brown).

It is true that with all the wars going on, the problems piling up – they call it the polycrisis – the doubts and suspicions sprouting like mushrooms, there are reasons to be discouraged. But “In life there are risks we cannot afford to take, and risks we cannot afford not to take” (Peter F. Drucker). And it is also true that “Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just roll up our sleeves and get to work” (Chuck Close), because “Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little” (Edmund Burke). If you aim at nothing, you will hit nothing.

“The world is in the hands of those who have the courage to dream and to take the risk of living their dreams. Each with his own talent,” taught Paulo Coelho, and he added: “There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible: the fear of failure.” And so, “Don’t dream your life. Live your dreams” (Robert Baden-Powell). “Believe in the power of your dreams and they will come true” (Sergio Bambarén).

In the end, we can all do something to leave this world better than we found it, provided we commit to doing our part: “Do what you have to do, do it now. The future is promised to no one” (Wayne W. Dyer), and “If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito” (Dalai Lama). “Nothing comes from nothing,” declared Lucretius.

“There are two things that never come back: an arrow released and an opportunity missed” (Jim Rohn). So let us do what we can, with what we have, where we are, because “We cannot do everything we want, but we must want everything we can” (Michel Riquet). “Actions are far more powerful than words” (Dale Carnegie).

Ultimately, if we do not get involved in today’s world, where too many evade the responsibility of the common good and flee from a coexistence based on justice and respect, it is because they fear the future. Yet “It’s only a matter of time. The future is already here. Not in the coming years, but in the next five minutes” (Rob Rodin), while everything that we, others and society need “lies on the other side of fear” (Jack Canfield). To obtain it, our desire must be greater than our fear.

“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” “Remember to always dare - Memento audere semper.” (Gabriele D’Annunzio) and remember that “Believing you can, is already halfway there” (Theodore Roosevelt). But also remember the teaching of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry: “If you want to build a boat, don’t drum up men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders, but teach them the longing for the vast and endless sea.”