The following quotes are from David Brooks’ The Second Mountain, a book that explores the four commitments that define a life of meaning and purpose: to a spouse and family, to a vocation, to a philosophy or faith, and to a community. Brooks’ thesis is that our personal fulfillment depends on how well we choose and execute these commitments.
Never underestimate the power of the environment you work in to gradually transform who you are
Nietzsche says that he who has a “why” to live for can endure any “how.”
The valley is where we shed the old self so the new self can emerge. There are no shortcuts.
There are huge benefits to leaving the center of things and going off into the margins.
Stretch the asking beyond what seems normal.
Socrates said that the purpose of life is the perfection of our souls- to realize the goodness that the soul longs for
A couple who is in love rather be in turmoil with each other than in tranquility alone.
The very essence of love is dedication
A thick life is defined by commitments and obligations
One task in life is synthesis. It is to collect all the fragmented pieces of a self and bring them to a state of unity so that you can move coherently toward a single version.
The way that she [Etty Hillesum] achieved unity was not through an endless inner process of self-excavation. It was through an outer process of giving her whole self away.
Happiness is essentially a state of going somewhere, wholeheartedly, one directionally, without reservation or regret.
Only later do people make up a near-linear narrative of their life to describe how they took the road less traveled
The Greek word for ‘beauty’ is kalon, which is related to the word ‘call.’ Beauty incites a desire to explore something and live within it
The tricky part of an annunciation moment is not having it but realizing you’re having it. The world is full of beautiful things and moments of wonder. But sometimes, they pass by without us realizing their importance.
All decisions involve a large measure of uncertainty about the future
The crucial terrain to be explored in any vocation search is the terrain of your heart and soul, your long-term motivation. Knowledge is plentiful; motivation is scarce
Most people devote themselves to avoiding that genuine self, to silencing the daemon and refusing to hear it. We bury the faint crackling of our inner fire underneath other, safer noises and settle for a false life.
Self discipline is a form of freedom. Freedom from laziness and lethargy, freedom from expectations and the demands of others, freedom from weakness in fear and doubt.
In silence, in steadiness, in severe abstraction, let him hold by himself; add observation to observation, patient of neglect, patient of reproach; and bide his own time, -- happy enough, if he can satisfy himself alone, that this day he has seen something truly.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson.
All commitment is really just recommitment- it’s saying yes to the thing you’ve already said yes to
Good people will mirror goodness in us, which is why we love them so much
Real forgiveness is rigorous. It balances accountability with mercy and compassion.
Passionate love is the only force strong enough to overthrow the ego.
Society is a massive conspiracy to distract you from the important choices of life in order to help you fixate on the unimportant ones.
Overwhelm the negative by increasing the positive.
You and your spouse are a team of two- no one else is allowed on the team, and no one else will ever understand the team’s rules.
We neither manipulate God (active voice) nor are manipulated by God (passive voice). We are involved in the action and participate in its results but do not control or define it (middle voice).
There is another way to find belonging. There is another way to find meaning and purpose. It is through relationalism. It is by going deep into ourselves, and finding there our illimitable ability to care, and then spreading outward and commitment to others.
When you build a whole society on an overly thin view of human nature you wind up with a dehumanized culture, in which people are starved of the things they yearn for most deeply.
The uncommitted person is the unremembered person. A person who does not commit to some loyalty outside of the self leaves no deep mark on the world.
The heart is that piece of us that longs for fusion with others. We are not primarily thinking creatures. We are primarily loving and feeling creatures. We are defined by what we desire. We become what we love. The core question for each of us is whether we have educated our emotions to love the right things in the right way.
A person achieves self-mastery, Maritain wrote, for the purpose of self giving.