Should you live for your résumé ... or your eulogy?

David BrooksDavid Brooks is an American conservative political and cultural commentator who writes for The New York Times.

He worked as an editorial writer and film reviewer for the Washington Times; a reporter and later op-ed editor for The Wall Street Journal; a senior editor at The Weekly Standard from its inception; a contributing editor at Newsweek and The Atlantic Monthly; and as a commentator on National Public Radio. He is now a columnist for The New York Times and commentator on the PBS News Hour

Are you living

Your resume

Or eulogy?

Resume virtues

Skills you bring to the marketplace

Eulogy VirtuesWho are you, in you depth?

What is the nature of your relationships?Are you bold, loving, dependable, consistency?

Soloveitchik said there are two sides of our natures, which he called

Adam I and Adam II

.

Brooks asks Can we balance these two

selves?

Adam I Motto "success."

Worldly

Ambitious External side of our nature 

Wants to build, create, create companies, create innovation

Wants to conquer the world

Savours accomplishment

Asks how things work

Adam IIMotto "love, redemption and return."

Humble

Do good and to be good

To live in a way internally that honours God, creation and our possibilities.  

wants to hear a calling and obey the world

savours inner consistency and strength.

asks why we're here

We live in perpetual self-confrontation between the external success and the internal value

You have to give to receiveYou have to surrender to something outside yourself to gain strength within yourself You have to conquer the desire to get what you want

In order to fulfil yourself, you have to forget yourself In order to find yourself, you have to lose yourself

We happen to live in a

society that favours Adam I 

and often neglects Adam II

There's a difference between your desired self and your actual self .  You're not earning the

sort of eulogy you want, you hope

someone will give to you.

You don't have the depth of conviction. 

You don't have an emotional

sonorousness

You don't have commitment to

tasks that would take more than a lifetime to

commit.

Adam I is built by

building on your

strengths

Adam II is built by fighting

your weaknesse

s

We live in a culture with an

Adam I mentality where

we're inarticulate

about Adam II

No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the

standpoint of our friend or foe as from our own standpoint. Therefore we must be saved by

that final form of love, which is forgiveness

Nothing we do, however virtuous, can

be accomplished alone; therefore we must be

saved by love

Nothing which is true or beautiful or good

makes complete sense in any immediate context of history;

therefore we must be saved by faith

Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved

in our lifetime; therefore we

must be saved by hope

References

• https://www.ted.com/talks/david_brooks_should_you_live_for_your_resume_or_your_eulogy?language=en• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Brooks_(journalist)• https://

www.ted.com/talks/david_brooks_should_you_live_for_your_resume_or_your_eulogy/transcript?language=en• http://www.brainpickings.org/2015/04/21/david-brooks-t

he-road-to-character/

Taruna ChoudhuryIndian Institute of Management, LucknowMBA Student