The Second Mountain
The people who are made larger by suffering go on to stage two small rebellions. First, they rebel against their ego ideal. When they were on their first mountain, their ego had some vision of what it was shooting for—some vision of prominence, pleasure, and success. Down in the valley they lose interest in their ego ideal. Of course afterward they
... See moreDavid Brooks • The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life
That’s what commitments are—alternatives to self-obsession. Commitments free us to dedicate ourselves to something bigger than ourselves—to something beyond our shells. The French philosopher Jacques Maritain said that the meaning of life is “self-mastery for the purpose of self-giving.” This is the challenge of growing up—to turn the corner from s... See more
Pete Davis • Dedicated: The Case for Commitment in an Age of Infinite Browsing
What keeps people together in dynamic relationships? A common purpose.
Matthew Kelly • The Seven Levels of Intimacy: The Art of Loving and the Joy of Being Loved
The place we unconsciously strive toward is what ancient philosophers of habit called our telos—our goal, our end. But the telos we live toward is not something that we primarily know or believe or think about; rather, our telos is what we want, what we long for, what we crave. It is less an ideal that we have ideas about and more a vision of “the
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