Title: The Road to
Character
Author: Brooks, David
Call Number: 170.44 B873R
2015
Subjects: Character;
Virtues; Humility
Book Description from
amazon:
“I wrote this book not sure I could
follow the road to character, but I wanted at least to know what the road looks
like and how other people have trodden it.”—David Brooks
With the wisdom, humor, curiosity, and sharp
insights that have brought millions of readers to his New York Times column and his previous bestsellers,
David Brooks has consistently illuminated our daily lives in surprising and
original ways. In The Social
Animal, he explored the
neuroscience of human connection and how we can flourish together. Now, in The Road to Character, he focuses on the deeper values
that should inform our lives. Responding to what he calls the culture of the
Big Me, which emphasizes external success, Brooks challenges us, and himself,
to rebalance the scales between our “résumé virtues”—achieving wealth, fame,
and status—and our “eulogy virtues,” those that exist at the core of our being:
kindness, bravery, honesty, or faithfulness, focusing on what kind of
relationships we have formed.
Looking to some of the world’s greatest thinkers
and inspiring leaders, Brooks explores how, through internal struggle and a
sense of their own limitations, they have built a strong inner character. Labor
activist Frances Perkins understood the need to suppress parts of herself so
that she could be an instrument in a larger cause. Dwight Eisenhower organized
his life not around impulsive self-expression but considered self-restraint.
Dorothy Day, a devout Catholic convert and champion of the poor, learned as a
young woman the vocabulary of simplicity and surrender. Civil rights pioneers
A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin learned reticence and the logic of
self-discipline, the need to distrust oneself even while waging a noble
crusade.
Blending psychology, politics, spirituality, and
confessional, The Road to
Character provides an
opportunity for us to rethink our priorities, and strive to build rich inner
lives marked by humility and moral depth.
“Joy,” David Brooks writes, “is a byproduct
experienced by people who are aiming for something else. But it comes.”
My Read:
I
didn’t have time to finish the whole book so I took the author’s advice to skip
to the end and read the last chapter titled “The Big Me.” In the last chapter
the author has a list of statements under the title “Humility Code.” I enjoyed reading the list. But the part I read
more than once came from the introduction of the book. Here are the highlights:
“Occasionally,
even today, you come across certain people who seem to possess an impressive inner
cohesion. They are not leading fragmented, scattershot lives. They have
achieved inner integration. They are calm, settled, and rooted. They
are not blown off course by storms. They don’t crumble in adversity. Their
minds are consistent and their hearts are dependable. Their virtues are not the
blooming virtues you see in smart college students; they are the ripening virtues
you see in people who have lived a little and have learned from joy and pain
(page xvi).
Sometimes
you don’t even notice these people, because while they seem kind and cheerful,
they are also reserved. They possess the self-effacing virtues of people who
are inclined to be useful but don’t need to prove anything to the world: humility,
restraint, reticence, temperance, respect, and soft self-discipline.(page
Xvi)
They
radiate a sort of moral joy. They answer softly when challenged harshly.
They are silent when unfairly abused. They are dignified when others try to
humiliate them, restrained when others try to provoke them. But they get things
done. They perform acts of sacrificial service with the same modest
everyday spirit they would display if they were just getting the
groceries. They are not thinking about
what impressive work they are doing. They are not thinking about themselves at
all. They just seem delighted by the flawed people around them. They just
recognize what needs doing and they do it.(page Xvi)
They
make you feel funnier and smarter when you speak with them…
These
are the people who have built a strong inner character, who have achieved a
certain depth. In these people, at the end of this struggle, the climb
to success has surrendered to the struggle to deepen the soul. (page Xvii)”
I
found the “Humility Code” served well at self-reflection moment.
The elements listed in the list serve well as
checkpoints.
There are very few people I consider "close best friends" own a strong inner character, the one the author points out in his book. It's a privilege to walk on this planet with them around me. It's almost like a live and living shield I wear to fight against adversity and negative forces. Millions of thanks I have owed to this finest group of people. Thank you all.
