Personal growth

Don’t play it safe, in your imaginings. Write a list of things you long for, that don’t include any kind of romantic entanglement, and then go after them with all of the caution and trepidation of a comet.

There’s a quote from Bismarck that says, in effect, any fool can learn from experience. The trick is to learn from other people’s experience. This book started around the latter idea and to my surprise ended up with a painful amount of the former as well.

We want him to be assertive, but not aggressive; to be empathetic, but not naive; to be “a doer,” but also introspective; to be perseverant, but not stubborn; to be prepared, but not obsessive; to help people, but not enable them . . .

In the traditional male hero’s hierarchy of needs, self-actualization is nowhere to be found—because the more he values himself, the less he is willing to sacrifice himself.