"It's Not About You" by David Brooks (NY Times Op-Ed Column)
While he misses the mark on a few points and makes a few overly sweeping generalizations, I couldn't agree more with his prescription for self-effacement. In other words: Screw the narcissism. Throw out the platitudes. Give me grit and give someone else the glory.
I wanted to write a response on how I feel and what this means for my own personal struggle(s) with my choices regarding the future, but I stumbled across this passage a few nights ago and I don't think I could explain a part of it as well as Kierkegaard does:
"Our early youth is like a flower at dawn with a lovely dewdrop in its cup, harmoniously and pensively reflecting everything that surrounds it. But as soon the sun rises over the horizon, and the dewdrop evaporates; with it vanish the fantasies of life, and now it becomes a question...whether or not a person is able to produce--by his own efforts as does the oleander--a drop that may represent the fruit of his life. This requires, above all, that one be allowed to grow in the soil where one really belongs, but that is not always so easy to find. In this respect there exist fortunate creatures who have such a decided inclination in a particular direction that they faithfully follow the path once it is laid out for them without ever falling prey to the thought that perhaps they ought to have followed an entirely different path. There are others who let themselves be influenced so completely by their surroundings that it never becomes clear to them in what direction they are really striving. Just as the former group has its own implicit categorical imperative, so the latter recognizes an explicit categorical imperative. But how few there are in the former group, and to the latter I do not wish to belong. Those who get to experience the real meaning of Hegelian dialectics in their lives are greater in number. Incidentally, it is altogether natural for wine to ferment before it becomes clear; nevertheless this process is often disagreeable in its several stages, although regarded in its totality it is of course agreeable, provided it does in the end yield its relative results in the context of the usual doubt. This is of major significance for anybody who has come to terms with his destiny by means of it, not only because of the calm that follows in contrast to the preceding storm, but because one then has life in a quite different sense than before."(taken from one of Kierkegaard's early journal entries, found in The Essential Kierkegaard)And just like that, I realize I've already decided. I want to have life.
