When the second-year class of high school graduates from Campolara School in Burgos. I had been with them, and as I said goodbye, many ideas, emotions, and even the image of a duck I saw that morning with its eight newborn chicks clinging to it came to mind. I felt a bit like that: like that mother who wants to care for and guide but knows that her children have to fly.

What can I say to them now that they’re leaving? How can I speak to their hearts without imposing, frightening, or trivializing? Perhaps the best way is to formulate the big question that now presents itself to them for the first time with seriousness: What are you going to do with your life?

Until now, parents, teachers, and adults have told them what to do. But now it’s their turn. And this question is as beautiful as it is dizzying: it opens horizons, speaks of freedom, but also imposes an enormous responsibility. How to respond if they barely know the world?

Perhaps the key isn’t inventing something new but rather recognizing and discovering. Not so much doing things from the outside (effectiveness), but bearing fruit from within, from who one is, from what inhabits one.

And for that, it’s essential to reframe the question: not “What do I have to do?” but “What do I truly desire?” This is the root of ethics: it doesn’t begin with obligation, but with deep desire. It’s not about immediate pleasure or superficial success but about what I truly want, forever.

We all desire pleasure and success. They are legitimate, natural. But when we absolutize them, they betray us: pleasure becomes addiction; success, anxiety. Both need context, direction, meaning. Beer with friends doesn’t taste the same as drinking alone. Professional achievement isn’t fulfilling if it doesn’t point to something greater. As in a drawing, we need a vanishing point that provides perspective and proportion.

Therefore, the great question of life is not only what you are going to do, but who you want to become. And that “who” is only discovered in relationship with others, with the world, and—for those who believe—with God.

To my dear students of Campolara: may you find that deep desire, may you fly freely and bear fruit. It’s not about doing a lot, but about doing well, about doing good. And that can only be achieved by those who live from within, from the essential, from love.