clarity

“Don’t aim at success—the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one’s dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness m

But changing yourself means giving up on, denying, and never again showing the face of “yourself until now,” as if you were sending it to its grave, in effect.

Many twentysomethings assume life will come together quickly after thirty, and maybe it will. But it is still going to be a different life. We imagine that if nothing happens in our twenties then everything is still possible in our thirties. We think that by avoiding decisions now, we keep all of our options open for later. But not making choices i

My mother raised me to be polite, to be demure. I have long operated under the idea that civility is subservience. But it hasn’t gotten me very far, that type of kindness. The world respects people who think they should be running it.

Identity capital is our stock of personal assets. It is how we add value to who we are, and it is what we have to show for how we have spent our time. These are the investments we make in ourselves, or the things we do well enough or long enough that they become a part of who we are. Rather than coming from that “lightning bolt of intuition” Helen

Twentysomethings who take the time to explore and also have the nerve to make commitments along the way construct stronger identities.

You have to find a job that makes your heart feel big instead of one that makes it feel small.

I felt a lot of internal pressure to figure it out, but all the thinking I did was really debilitating and unproductive. The one thing I have learned is that you can’t think your way through life. The only way to figure out what to do is to do—something.

Not knowing what you want to do with your life—or not at least having some ideas about what to do next—is a defense against that terror. It is a reluctance to admit that the possibilities are not endless. It is a way of pretending there is nothing you can do to improve your situation. It is a resistance against accepting that there are no right ans