Sublime

Now I understand that what is most critical is our objective for living. We must clarify and see without any doubt that living a truly human life is our highest value.

As I settled into the next phase of my recovery, I began to notice something I had never experienced before: I found more joy in being than in doing. For the first time in my life, I felt that I could be a good father. I could be a good husband. I could be a good person. After all, this is the whole point of living. And the whole point of

daily act of holding life and death, joy and pain in balance and exploring new depths of gratitude and love.

Being a person is not a goal that can be achieved but a purpose that must be sustained.

being genuinely open to and affected by everything around us means that there is no picking and choosing. It is everything or nothing—the good, the bad, and the ugly

Jimmy Baldwin used to like to talk about us “achieving ourselves,” finding who we are, what we’re for and making that possible for each other.

“Eulogies aren’t résumés,” David Brooks wrote.34 “They describe the person’s care, wisdom, truthfulness and courage. They describe the million little moral judgments that emanate from that inner region.”

concerning the nature of being itself.