Finally p 362 “Here’s my point: usually, all we get is a glimmer. A story we read or someone we briefly met. A curiosity. A meek voice inside, whispering. It’s up to us to hammer out the rest. The rewards of pursuing it are only for those who are willing to listen attentively, only for those people who really care….Finding what we should do is one of life’s great dramas. It can be an endless process of discovery, one to be appreciated and respected for its difficulty.”

More quotes: p327 “A culinary academy is where a cook is turned into a chef. I’d talked to other people who, like Kurt, had turned to cooking after a midlife crisis. There’s something about nourishment, and nourishing others, that helps people to heal. Half the student body of most culinary schools are people in emotional transition.”

“You have to give yourself permission to enjoy the life that you have been given.

ch 46. Fears are inherited too.

This chapter tells a story of a guy who went running away from home to avoid the chronic illness of his father. Sometimes home haunts and drives us in ways we need to deal with.

“Becoming a parent can trigger a return of meaning, a sort of meaning audit. The relationship with your child is so meaningful it can reveal just how meaningless other things in your life are. And people deal with this information in opposite ways. Many people suddenly are relieved of the burden of finding meaningful work. They’re perfectly content to punch the clock; family provides meaning now. if they can afford to, they’d rather stay home with the kids. But just as commonly, this meaning audit compels people to hold a higher standard to their life; they can no longer waste half their waking hours on some job that doesn’t do it for them. They don’t want their child to watch them lead a dispassionate life. Almost half the people in this book are parents.”

p 293 “Everybody needs fuel for their engine. Making seven figures on Wall Street is cheap wood, it burns up too fast. I need something that burns well. That’s substantive. That’s real.”

“One of the things I’ve learned from this book is, don’t pretend what you do doesn’t shape you.”

“And when you’ve had to fight to know yourself, you don’t give that ground back, not to anything.”

More quotes: p 286 “That summer popped his belief in what he calls the Academic Bubble World Myth — the notion that a student can ‘know’ a subject merely by reading books about it and writing papers, without ever having experienced it firsthand.”

“Call me romantic, but deep down I want to be great. I want to believe in a cause or an idea bigger than my individual financial or career progress. Deep down, that’s why I can’t get myself to look seriously at law or business school applications. Tell me, is there really anything—anything at all—‘great’ about working for a firm or corporation? and so here I am, chasing greatness.”

“At Yale, we were taught that people in the cities are poor because of factors outside their control. I used to think that inner-city kids only needed to connect. They needed love and understanding. And so if they were disorderly in class, I would let it go as a way of making them my friend, currying their favor. And they kicked my ass. They abused me. if I gave an inch, they would take a mile. I couldn’t connect with them.They did not respond to kindness, they took advantage of it. My class would be continuously disrupted. I learned the hard way. What they need is someone to teach them habits that lead to success later in life. They need someone to tell them when they’ve done something wrong. Kids face a thousand choices, and they need someone to teach them to make the right choices. How to handle social situations, how to take responsibility and not make excuses. I’ve become much more conservative by working here. It’s the last think I expected. It’s much more like how my father raised me, with tough love.”

p 289 “‘We teach character, I didn’t know what character was when I came here. I was chronically late, and my body language was distant. I had to learn character in order to teach it, and I’m a much better person now. I handle situations better.’”

“The situation that got them in trouble is replayed in conversation, moment by moment and the students are repeatedly asked how they could have handled the moment differently. It’s drilled into them that they make choices. They become aware, and they stop acting without thinking.”

“They are never asked to memorize — they’re only asked to demonstrate exemplary character: perseverance, integrity, respect, responsibility, courage. The highest honor in the school is not a 4.0 GPA — it’s to receive the Gambatte Award for exhibiting character. This can be for an act of generosity, or for resisting peer pressure, or for avoiding a fight.”

“The truth is, I don’t really think about what I should do with my life, I love my school, and I stopped thinking about it.”

Sounds great, yet the chapter ends talking about the imbalance of the guy’s life. Hmm. He has no girlfriend, works terrible hours that can’t be sustained for a lifetime. Not complete. But a good description for what satisfaction tastes like.

Chapter 43. Where fears hide This is your own responsibility.

Here he talks about himself. He fantasized about working with his wife. “Sharing made everything more interesting.” His wife was a writer and editor and he shared everything he wrote with her first. She was a tremendous influence, but he says that she was also a crutch. He left her (for other reasons) and found that he couldn’t write without her help. He recognized his weaknesses and faced them. He wrote his next book by facing those weaknesses and strengthening them. He developed greater strength as a writer. He also says that he became a better listener. And he discovered a strength in himself where he didn’t need the crutch of his spouse’s approval. His writing stands alone. “I’m careful not to let my work be an obsession that gets between us. I know that if writing is my dream, then it’s my responsibility alone. I never again want to use another person that way.”

Favorite quotes:

Page 229 “in New York, it was culture consupmtion. You listened to the music so you could be an expert on it. Everything had a purpose that related back to status.” In New York, people engage in a sociology experiment on what life is. In New Orleans, people live their lives."

Page 231 “Being competetive was a default subsitute for following her dream. Being better than others was a default substitute for being true to herself.”

“. . . but she still couldn’t summon the courage to have a go at writing. What would it mean to fail at the thing you really want to do? What would be left to dream about?”

Page 232 “She started writing and editing for free and it always evolved into paying work.”

Page 233 “The benefit of being around like minded people” I can’t emphasize enough the sway of being in a community of like minded people."

p 236 “Did we believe in each oterh? Here and there, but not across the board. You would assume that’s necessary, but it’s not. The talent doesn’t have to shine from the outset. Most people will perform if given a chance and a few role models.”

p 237 “I’ve learned that without structure, I become unstable and self-destructive fairly quickly.”

“But the structure and routine it provides keep me sane. I’m absent-minded, forget to pay my bills, can’t return phone calls, forget birthdays — … But now I think there is no excuse for not taking care of myself or treating others with decency.”

“Inevitably, getting into an environment of like-minded people, . . . inevitably, it means you have to ditch your old support system, family or friends. …the seat you’ve saved for them at your Inner Circle has to be given to someone new.”

p 240 Traveling, “…exposing yourself to how other people live loosens the mind. ‘look how happy they are with so little money’ for instance.”

p 266 "Do not wait for the kind of clarity that comes with epiphanies. In the nine hundred plus stories I heard in my research, almost nobody was struck with an epiphany. It was one of my biggest surprises. Most people had a slim notion or a slight urge that they slowly nurtured until it grew into a faint hope which barely stayed alive for years until it could mature into a vision. Most people feel guilty about wanting what they want, and they feel foolish for wanting something impossible, and those censoring voices will bark like a pack of junkyard dogs, night after night. Don’t doubt your desire because it comes to you as a whisper; don’t think, “If it were really important to me, I’d feel clearer about this, less conflicted.” My research didn’t show that to be true. The things we really want to do are usually the ones that scare us the most. The things you’ll not feel conflicted about are the choices that leave no one hurt.

I picked this book up at a thrift store because the title is intriguing, and I am looking for a job. The stories are interesting and have helped identify some of the questions that I want to ask.

The title itself however has been quite helpful. What should I do with my life? I should be nice to people, enjoy myself, do something for someone else; what I shouldn’t do what I am doing, which seems to be wasting it worrying about what I should do.

This question used to make my stomach churn. Now I find myself able to plan only 6 months into the future. Either way, these stories may serve to inspire.