We want to belong to something larger than ourselves.

Wild problems that don’t turn out well aren’t mistakes. They’re more like adventures. Adventures have twists and turns and ups and downs. Belichick teaches us that if you can go on an adventure that you can end without great cost, go. If it turns out badly, cut it short. If it turns out well, enjoy the ride. This beats trying to figure out in

The hard part is knowing when to give up on the plan when things go sideways or you discover your plan isn’t the right one for you.

Nothing cancels out betraying who you are or who you aspire to be. So you can’t add “losing respect for myself” as one of the costs of keeping the diamond.

Marriage is about becoming a husband or wife. That changes who I am and how I go through life. Being a spouse transcends and elevates my daily experience.

Sound like fun? It wasn’t. But it turned out to be one of the most extraordinary experiences of my life. I’ve done the same retreat twice since then. I found it emotionally overwhelming. It changed the way I think about many things but especially myself. It softened me in ways that have stayed with me long after the retreat ended.

We delay because we don’t like making decisions.

Darwin’s list tells us more about Darwin than it does about marriage. His list of pluses and minuses—especially the pluses—is the list that someone would make who has never been married and has no access to the upside of the inner life of a married man.

Sure, some of us would love for someone to give us an itinerary to go with our trip to Rome—a tour bus where all the stops are preplanned because they’re the popular ones. But most of us would prefer to discover for ourselves what we love about Rome and what we might come to love.