‘The Little Prince’ was a book of great international success in the last century and even today Saint-Exupéry’s work is constantly republished in several languages. One of the most touching passages concerns the friendship between a fox and the little prince, exiled on a tiny, isolated desert planet.
Recently, invited to give a conference at the Legislative Assembly of Rio Grande do Sul on the innovations present in the New Bidding Law – NLL, I remembered one of the dialogues between the prince and the fox.
“- Goodbye, said the fox. Here is my secret. It is very simple: one sees well only with the heart. The essential is invisible to the eyes.
– The essential is invisible to the eyes, the little prince repeated, in order to remember.”
What is essential is invisible to the eye.
This message from the fox can be applied to multiple situations in our lives. Not only in personal relationships, but also in professional and academic ones, the fox calls us to see beyond appearances and not to judge, react and position ourselves only in front of what we observe on the surface.
When the fox says that “one sees well only with the heart,” he is not appealing, as some hasty snobs have scorned, to sentimentality. None of this. The fox invites us to develop emotional intelligence and use the resources of the prefrontal cortex. Going beyond mere sensory experience, with all the prejudices, heuristics and automatic reactions of the limbic system, the fox leads us to simultaneously exercise compassion and critical thinking.
When we are suffocated by the accumulation of unstructured data or bombarded by often contradictory and useless misinformation, what the eyes see is misleading and can lead to disastrous results. It may be advisable to close them and seek inspiration from deeper and more perennial values.
At the boardroom table, for example, strategic decisions require much more than the quantitative analysis of financial statements and projections. In the evolution of knowledge, the simple observation of visible reality would not have made scientific and technological revolutions possible. And so on.
In the case of my speech I underlined that, until then, all the analyzes on the NLL highlighted new tender methods, hypotheses of waivers, deadlines, sanctions, etc., but that in the standard there was a whole content to be discovered, “visible only to the heart”: sustainability, accessibility, innovation, digital governance mechanisms, protection of victims of domestic violence, enhancement of internal control, among other relevant themes.
It was the secret that I learned from the fox and that I always try to apply: you can only see clearly with your heart.
Source: Terra
Rose James is a Gossipify movie and series reviewer known for her in-depth analysis and unique perspective on the latest releases. With a background in film studies, she provides engaging and informative reviews, and keeps readers up to date with industry trends and emerging talents.
