David Brooks delivered the Dartmouth commencement address in 2015, building on themes from his book 'The Road to Character.' His central argument was counterintuitive and deliberately provocative for an Ivy League audience raised on the gospel of keeping options open: the purpose of life is not to maximize freedom but to end it through commitments. Brooks identified four major commitments that define a life: to a spouse and family, to a career and vocation, to a faith or philosophy, and to a community and village. He argued that 'we live in a culture that puts a lot of emphasis on individual liberty and freedom of choice,' and that 'Ivy League student culture is built around keeping your options open and fear of missing out.' The entire Internet, he said, is 'commanding you to sample one thing after another.' The paradox Brooks described was that commitments don't feel like constraints when they're made to something you truly love. 'It won't feel like you are putting on an uncomfortable lobster shell. It will feel like you are taking off the shell and becoming the shape you were meant to be.' Freedom, he argued, is not the goal but the means — and its purpose is to be spent on commitments worthy of a life.