It’s important to find a healthy balance between doing what we think we need to do, and being the kind of person we want to be.
Most of us tend to focus more at our doing than at our being. We spend our lives trying to make something of ourselves, trying to have an impact, trying to be reasonably successful in this world. We work hard to accomplish our goals and teach our children to do the same. Our culture’s ethos of achievement feeds this focus, and can lead us to believe we are defined by our external success.
When we’re so focused on doing, it’s easy to neglect the deepest parts of ourselves. We forget to stop and ask: Who do I want to be? What inner qualities do I need to cultivate in order to be this kind of person?
In a recent NY Times essay, “The Moral Bucket List“, author David Brooks differentiates between two sets of virtues: “resume virtues” and “eulogy virtues”. Resume virtues refer to the many things we do to achieve external success, while eulogy virtues refer to our inner character or way of being in the world. “We all know that the eulogy virtues are more important than the resume virtues”, he says. Yet most of us spend more time doing what we think we need to do than being the kind of person we want to be.
After reading this NY Times essay, I decided I want to read the most recent book by David Brooks, The Road To Character, from which this essay was adapted. I am planning to read The Road To Character as part of an intentional effort to pay more attention to the kind of person I want to be. Let’s just say its on my moral bucket list.
From the reviews I’ve read about this book, Brooks uses a number of biographical essays to explore the lives of people like Frances Perkins, Dwight Eisenhower, Dorothy Day and others–people most of us have grown to love and admire. None of them were even close to perfect. They all had limitations and flaws. Unique to all of them though, was their acute awareness of their own weaknesses. Each of them had the courage to confront their particular weaknesses and grow them into strengths that allowed them to be a better person and make a greater difference in this world. Although they worked hard to cultivate eulogy virtues like humility, restraint, reticence, temperance, respect and soft self-discipline, they invariably recognized their need for “redemptive assistance” from outside of themselves–from God, family, friends, and others. They understood that confronting their weaknesses was not a solitary struggle.
I’m eager to immerse myself in the lives of these outstanding people and try to understand the wisdom of the way they lived. First though, I need to do something. I need to visit Amazon.com and push the order button!
Challenge: To boost your focus on being, think of a relationship issue in your life where you are experiencing frustration or disappointment. Then ask yourself these two questions: If nothing changes, who do I want to be in this relationship? What choice does this lead me to?