Approach To Character Development

There is a passage worth sharing from David Brook in his book The Road To Character. As I was going back through the book I came across a note that I penned in the margins to summarize the main message of the book. I thought it worth sharing:

Over the last several decades, we have built a moral ecology focused on the "Big Me" and "the Golden Figure Inside" as opposed to the "Crooked Timber School". This has led to narcissism + self-aggrandizement as well as follies of pride, low-trust societies, anti-institutionalist sentiments, loneliness, and moral fragility + being lost. To remedy this we must get back to some of the ideas of the crooked timber school.

-Mike McMullen Summarizing The Road To Character Thesis

As I go through many books on character, life philosophy, purpose, and what it means to live a good life, I have changed my focus. At first my search was looking for definitive answers. I had the hopes of coming away from it all with a tidy and eloquent life philosophy, neatly packaged yet all encompassing. Now I realized its all about the act of searching itself and being open to the new frameworks that the search uncovers.

Each new framework that I learn from a philosophy adds a new arrow to my quiver, a new tool that I can use to approach the inevitable struggles that arise in the course of life.