David Brooks

Your fulfillment in life will not come from how well you explore your freedom and keep your options open. Your fulfillment in life will come by how well you end your freedom. Your primary mission in life is to be really good at making commitments.

Success leads to the greatest failure, which is arrogance and pride. Failure can lead to the greatest success, which is humility and learning. In order to fulfill yourself, you have to forget yourself. In order to find yourself, you have to lose yourself.

The highest joy is found in sending down roots. It's the things you chain yourself to that set you free.

No, you will not find your passion. Your passion will find you. Relax and wait for it.

Success leads to the greatest failure, which is pride. Failure leads to the greatest success, which is humility and learning. In order to fulfill yourself, you have to forget yourself. In order to find yourself, you have to lose yourself.

The daily activity that contributes most to happiness is having dinner with friends. The daily activity that detracts most from happiness is commuting. Eat more. Commute less.

The purpose in life is not to find yourself. It's to lose yourself.

Happiness is love. Full stop. The surest way to measure whether a person is happy, healthy and well is to ask: How deeply is that person enmeshed in deep passionate commitments?

You don't need to panic if you don't yet know what you want to do with your life. But you probably want to throw yourselves into circumstances where the summons will come.