The Primary challenges of life are not knowledge challenges, the are motivational challenges. It’s not only knowing what is good, but being compeletely and passionately devoted and loving what is good. It’s about passionately loving yours spouse and family in a way that brings out their loveliness. It’s about loving you vocation with fierce dedication. It’s about loving your community with a serving heart. It’s about loving you philosophy or your God with a humble fervor. A fullfilled life is moving from open options to sweet compulsions. It’s about saying no to a thousand things so you can say a few big yeses to the things you are deeply bound to. It’s about loving things so much that you’re willing to chain yourself down to them. The things you chain yourself to are the things that set free. And it’s not only loving Platonically. It’s actually and intimately loving out the day to day realities of your fierce love. It’s intimately sharing the same bathroom or getting up every day, and writing on the same damn laptop. Its’ about mastering all the phases of intimacy: being open to the first enticing glance, having the energy to really learn about those people, like those people on a first date who learn how much they have in common with each other and treat these things as amazing miracles: “You don’t like foigras? Neither do I! We should get married!”. It’s about having the courage in the reciprocal cycle of ever greater vulnerability. It’a about enduring faithfully when there is some crisis and you’re not sure you believe in this relationship, this career or this institution. It’s about forgiveness for the betrayals committed anaginse you and asking forgiveness when you have let down your friends or your profession or your spouse. When you make an intimate connection — to a spouse, a friend, a professtion or a community or faith, you are as Leon Wieseltier puts is, ”consenting to be truly known, which is an ominous prospect.” And so one need the skills of intimacy to live well in such close proximity. One needs the skills of intimacy to achieve the kind of fusion that leads to real joy when a couple become one loving entity, when you and your vocation have merged into a single identity, when your love for you God or your philosophy is a complete surrender. What I’m describing here are emotional arts, They are not natural but have to be acquired by repeated by repeated vulnerability, commitment and experience.
人生面对的首要挑战不是知识的挑战，而是动力的挑战，人生在于不仅要知道何谓益事，还要带着爱与热血全身心投入其中；人生在于热烈地爱着你的配偶和家人，以至于焕发出他们内心的爱；人生在于坚定地热爱自己的事业；在于服务自己所爱的社区；在于以虔诚赤子之心爱着自己奉行的哲学或宗教。圆满的人生是从开放式选择走向为了亲密关系献身的过程；是你千万次拒绝，只为去做那微不足道，却使你深深牵挂之事；是你与所爱之事产生的羁绊，你虽然负重前行，但是它们却能给你自由。这种爱不是柏拉图式的理想之爱，而是将内心的热爱真正地融入到日常生活的点滴之中，与所爱之人共享浴室，同床共枕，一起在笔记本上写写画画。它在于把握亲密关系的每个阶段，响应她对你抛出的媚眼，花精力去了解她，就像是初次约会的恋人那样，发现彼此之间的诸多共同点。多么惊人的巧合呀，“你不喜欢佛加格拉斯？我也是！不如我们结婚吧！”。它在于勇于直面循环往复的脆弱感，在于遭遇危机后依然坚守，即便自己并不确信这份关系，这份事业或这个机构。在于宽恕对你的背叛，在当你辜负朋友，工作失误或是伤了配偶的心时，能够请求原谅。当你与配偶、朋友、职业、社区或信仰建立密切联系时，你就像里昂·维斯提耶所说的那样，“愿意被他人真正地了解，虽然前路危机四伏”。所以人们需要学会建立亲密关系，实现相处之道，人们需要学会建立亲密关系，彼此相依，体悟人生真趣。一对夫妇要为爱而结成伴侣，你需要和你的事业融为一体，你应完全献身于自己所信奉的哲学或者宗教。我在这里谈的是情感的艺术，我们并非天生就懂得它，需要反复经历脆弱不堪、矢志不渝、人情历练后才能有所掌握。
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