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win some victory, and then there is also this other kind of permanent joy that animates people who are not obsessed with themselves but have given themselves away.
Down in the valley they lose interest in their ego ideal.
Second, they rebel against the mainstream culture.
The second mountain is not the opposite of the first mountain. To climb it doesn’t mean rejecting the first mountain. It’s the journey after it.
Some people radically alter their lives when this happens. They give up their law practices and move to Tibet.
Others stay in their basic fields but spend their ...
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If they work in a company, they no longer see themselves as managers but as mentors; their energies are devoted to helping others get better.
If the first mountain is elitist—moving up—the second mountain is egalitarian—planting yourself amid those who need, and walking arm in arm with them.
You conquer your first mountain. You identify the summit, and you claw your way toward
are conquered by your second mountain.
Our society has become a conspiracy against joy. It has put too much emphasis on the individuating part of our consciousness—individual reason—and too little emphasis on the bonding parts of our consciousness, the heart and soul. We’ve seen a shocking rise of mental illness, suicide, and distrust. We have become too cognitive when we should be more emotional; too utilitarian when we should be using a moral lens; too individualistic when we should be more communal.
What’s the difference? Happiness involves a victory for the self, an expansion of self. Happiness comes as we move toward our goals, when things go our way. You get a big promotion. You graduate from college. Your team wins the Super Bowl. You have a delicious meal. Happiness often has to do with some success, some new ability, or some heightened sensual pleasure. Joy tends to involve some transcendence of self. It’s when the skin barrier between you and some other person or entity fades away and you feel fused together. Joy is present when mother and baby are gazing adoringly into each
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In a culture of “I’m Free to Be Myself,” individuals are lonely and loosely attached. Community is attenuated, connections are dissolved, and loneliness spreads.
The students in the audience put down that empty box because they are drowning in freedom. What they’re looking for is direction.
So we hand them another big box of nothing—the big box of possibility! Your future is limitless! You can do anything you set your mind to! The journey is the destination! Take risks! Be audacious! Dream big!
At the moment when you are most confused about what you should do with your life, the smartest bet is to do what millions of men and women have done through history. Pick yourself up and go out alone into the wilderness.
“Vocation does not come from willfulness. It comes from listening. I must listen to my life and try to understand what it is truly about—quite apart from what I would like it to be about.”
Relationship is the driver of change. Think of who made you who you are. It was probably a parent, a teacher, or a mentor. It wasn’t some organization that was seeking a specific and measurable outcome that can be reduced to metrics. It wasn’t a person looking to create a system of change that could scale. It was just a person doing something intrinsically good—making you feel known, cared for, trusted, unconditionally loved—without presuming to know how that relationship would alter the trajectory of your life.
Students are taught to engage in critical thinking, to doubt, distance, and take things apart, but they are given almost no instruction on how to attach to things, how to admire, to swear loyalty to, to copy and serve. The universities, like the rest of society, are information rich and meaning poor.
