Should you live for your résumé … or your eulogy?
– David Brooks

From TED.com

Within each of us are two selves, suggests David Brooks in this meditative short talk: the self who craves success, who builds a résumé, and the self who seeks connection, community, love — the values that make for a great eulogy. (Joseph Soloveitchik has called these selves “Adam I” and “Adam II.”) Brooks asks: Can we balance these two selves?

New York Times columnist David Brooks is the author of “Bobos in Paradise,” “On Paradise Drive,” and the narrative of neuroscience, “The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character and Achievement.”

Why you should listen

Writer and thinker David Brooks has covered business, crime and politics (as well as subbing in as the W

all Street Journal‘s movie critic) over a long career in journalism. He’s an Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times in a legendary run that started in September 2003.

His column looks deeply into the social currents that underpin American life. He’s the author of Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There and On Paradise Drive: How We Live Now (And Always Have) in the Future Tense. His most recent book, The Social Animal, examines new findings in brain science in the context of a story about two successful people whose lives unfold in ways that neurological research is helping us understand more deeply.  

Brooks is a frequent analyst on NPR’s All Things Considered and a commentator on The Newshour with Jim Lehrer.

Now watch his video :

TITLE: David Brooks: Should you live for your résumé … or your eulogy?
TED2014 · 5:01 minutes · Filmed Mar 2014 

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