My 7 Takeaways from The Second Mountain by David Brooks

On Seeking Purpose and Meaning when Facing a Mid-Life Crisis

Consistency, discipline, focus, and relentless pursuit of goals. We often hear these words when the topic is moving forward in life and achieving goals. But life is complex. There are way too many variables. A lot we are not in control of. In fact, barely anything that we do control. Anyone who has ever formulated and pursued a clear plan, knows all too well how plans get disrupted and derailed. As the great philosopher Mike Tyson (stealing this from Peter Attia’s book :)) once said: “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face”.

This is another way of saying what Heraclitus said 2,500 thousand years ago: “The Only Constant in Life is Change”. Change is a consistent theme of Heraclitus’ thinking — recall “You Cannot Enter the Same River Twice”. The river changes. So do we. Which brings me to this article’s topic — a book that is all about going through significant change in life and re-discovering one’s purpose.

Enter The Second Mountain by David Brooks. Let me say this. This may be one of the best books I have ever read. There is plenty in it that I don’t entirely agree with. But it is one of the very few books that made me think. Really think. Think about my life. Think about the lives of the people around me.

The author is a conservative writer who worked for Washington Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Newsweek. I first came across Brooks’ work when I bought his book The Road to Character, in which he offers his views on ethics and morality. The book’s main message is that our times’ over-emphasis on the self has negatively affected our ability to find happiness, and that to build character we need to acknowledge our flaws and get rid of our pride.

In The Second Mountain, Brooks goes a few steps further and acknowledges that when he wrote The Road to Character he was “still enclosed in the prison of individualism”. At the time he looked at character formation as something that was a task of an individual, like developing muscles in a gym. But he no longer thinks that is sufficient and moral joy is only achievable through service — to a community, or a cause, through moral promises to other people, and through loving attachments. As Brooks puts it: “Good character is a by-product of giving yourself away”.

The Second Mountain offers a compelling metaphor — climbing two mountains in one’s life. The first mountain is usually all about personal ambition and the pursuit of career and wealth. The second mountain involves committing to deep relationships, community, and a life of service. Brooks starts by examining how most of us view life “on the way to the first mountain top”. We are pursuing success, good income, social status, and personal happiness through specific things we want to have — a home, a good education, nice vacations, good food, and a good reputation. Many do not achieve these. That’s bad enough. But even those who do are often surprised at how this does not bring them happiness or fulfillment. You reach a point in your life when something goes wrong with your career, relationship, or reputation. Life hits you with an unexpected knockout. Sometimes it is a singular event that alters everything. But sometimes nothing out of the ordinary happens, you keep going day after day as you always have and just get a nagging feeling that something is wrong — all appears on track, yet you cannot shrug off a feeling that you are on the wrong path. Often referred to as a mid-life crisis, this stage can be extremely painful and hard to navigate. The original goalposts seem no longer relevant so some people jump into whatever seems to offer a sense of direction. A religion, a philosophy, a new relationship, or a new activity. Others are confused and may give up. The whole thing is often accompanied by a bouquet of negative feelings — anxiety, boredom, withdrawal, isolation, feeling unfulfilled, lacking motivation, neglecting self-care, or even more acute symptoms such as problems with sleep, weight gain or loss, or depression.

The Second Mountain is about seeking a way out of this situation and forward, towards more meaningful goals. It is about achieving moral joy — “powerful moments of moral elevation that seem to push a mental reset button, wiping out feelings of cynicism and replacing them with feelings of hope, love, and moral inspiration”. The book is filled with stories and personal anecdotes full of insightful and thought-provoking ideas and recommendations. I was actually surprised at how dense it was. Not every recommendation is for everyone, but I am sure all readers can find something useful in the renewed search for purpose and meaning.

I cannot do justice to the book in such a short article (despite that it is my longest article to date), but I will still try to give you a sense of what for me were the key issues. Here are my 7 takeaways from The Second Mountain by David Brooks:

1. Individualism — you conquer your first mountain. As Brooks puts it: “You claw your way toward it”, as opposed to the second mountain where you answer the call. You conquer your first mountain through personal growth and skill acquisition. Accomplishment is the main point. In fact, individualism was essentially a rebellion against the stifling effect of a collectivist society. But now the pendulum seems to have swung to the opposite extreme, especially with the advent of social media. So much so that individualism is leading to selfishness and narcissism which we seem to normalize these days. Money, status, and power. Personal freedom is great, but if it is an end in itself, it leads to a busy life with no sense of direction. All the speakers at graduation ceremonies seem to tell the young generations to follow their desires, that they can do whatever we want, be whatever they want. The end goal is me. My benefit. My satisfaction. My happiness. Often things like commitment, and service — are not even mentioned — as if starting a family, or serving a community is only going to limit our personal freedom and make our lives unbearable.
2. Why do we aim at the first mountain, to begin with? Brooks describes how the youth today goes from a super-structured childhood to the least structured adulthood, which creates a shock that not everyone is able to recover from. The young realize that the world does not really care about them. Softened by helicopter parents and overly comfortable society, they suddenly find themselves in a harsh reality of competition for jobs and the need to support themselves and soon, others. In the past, the community and relative clarity of the path would offer a safety net of sorts as the youth followed their parents’ jobs, faith, and lifestyles. Now one of two things happen:
   - Kids want to be cool, go crazy, and have amazing experiences — Instagram life. Most of which only hide the real struggles of the people and show only the carefully curated moments. The problem with this approach is, as Brooks puts it: “You have thousands of conversations and remember none. You hover above everything but never land.” You cannot build authenticity on a foundation of nothing. This kind of approach to life results in you being “just bored at a more frenetic pace”. Or,
   - Kids become insecure overachievers, approaching life as a continuation of school. But as Brooks explains, utilitarian pragmatism also does not lead to a fulfilling life. Workaholism does distract us from emotional and spiritual issues but does not resolve them. We seem to have a purpose, but still can’t find joy. Today when we say someone has character, we mean he or she has grit, discipline, and is productive. We rarely refer to love, kindness, or service. “Meritocracy has a soul-flattening influence that is survivable if you have your own moral value system.” Brooks calls this chapter Insecure Overachiever because you try to build your way out of the problem. You achieve things this way, but you lack foundation. One of the worrying signs is that you find yourself constantly comparing yourself to others.
3. Finding yourself in The Valley (of suffering and defeat). Do you wonder why we suddenly have a huge interest in Stoicism? Why Jordan Peterson is so popular? In the past, religions provided a sense of direction. I won’t go into an argument about whether that direction was a good or a bad one. A direction nonetheless. Political ideologies became the next best thing. In a hyper-individualized society, we reject the common direction, yet struggle to find a personal one. After the first mountain, as you get hit by the crisis, you first deny there is one. You get a new car, you quit your job, or travel to India, trying to spice things up or “find yourself”. Only after it does not work, do you recognize you need a deeper kind of change. Here you either keep trudging along, or you go into a paralysis of sorts.
   - This period affects people differently, but there are some common elements. Typically, you first experience loneliness, which breeds distrust of others and of governments. The crisis of meaning — when we want people to write their own stories, we forget that not everyone is willing or capable to do that. This feeds into tribalism since people yearn for structure and tribalism is essentially our knee-jerk reaction to extreme individualism. But tribalism, while similar, is quite different from a community. Tribalism cannot deliver what people truly need — identity. Tribalism binds people together, sure. But while communities are based on mutual affection, tribalism is a connection based on mutual hatred of a particular group.
   - So you suffer. And suffering in and of itself, without a larger narrative of change and redemption, is not noble. It is just pain. Nothing else. You enter what Brooks refers to as Wilderness. The wrong reaction is to, say, drink. The right is “to stand erect in the face of suffering” and see what it has to teach you. If handled correctly, suffering can help improve, not diminish.
   - And finally, we arrive at commitments you make as you find your way out of “the valley and the wilderness”. What is a commitment? It is making a promise to something without expecting a reward. You dedicate your time, energy, and life to them. As Brooks puts it: “The most complete definition of a commitment is this: falling in love with something and then building a structure of behavior around it for those moments when love falters.” Commitments are what shape our identity, give us purpose, and meaning, and allow us to move to a higher level of freedom. They build our moral character — which is the point Brooks has been building up to all along.
4. First commitment: Vocation. It can be the job you are at right now. It can be something else. The question is, how do you find it? Brooks refers to Victor Frankl: “We need to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life — daily and hourly. Our answer must consist not in talk and meditation but in right action and in right conduct.” There is what Brooks calls a testing period — when the costs outweigh the benefits, which you go through to get to the right period of intensity. It is no longer a career choice. You take up a vocation because you feel you have no other choice. It becomes unthinkable not to. It is a bit like a hero’s journey. A call is followed by meeting the mentor, who can teach the things you cannot learn otherwise, things that cannot be found in books, rules, or recipes — the practical knowledge. You cannot really see clearly what the end result of this transformation will be. You have no idea what you are getting into. You need to find “a match between delicious activity and a social need”. The best way to put it is perhaps how Martin Luther King described it: “Your work should have length — something you get better at over a lifetime, breadth — it should touch many other people, and height — it should put you in service to some ideal and satisfy the soul’s yearning for righteousness.” This is why just self-improvement without service is dulling your life. Wears away the feelings. Think of the time when the activity you engaged in created enthusiasm. True enthusiasm that came from your very heart. You work through the cycles of learning, applying what you learn, getting feedback, learning again, and trying to make the most positive impact possible. With discipline, and after many such cycles, you arrive at the stage of mastery — just as Martin Luther King describes.
5. Second commitment: Marriage. A beautiful marriage is not dramatic, the acts that define it are small, constant, and particular. It is never-ending small gestures of tact and consideration at the day-to-day level. It is ups and downs, private jokes, hearing the same stories over and over. They say who you marry is the most important decision you will ever make — or as George Washington puts it: “the foundation of happiness or misery”. Marriage, as Brooks puts it, is the ultimate moral education. Marriage, like all commitments, isn’t there to make you happy. It is there to make you grow. Yes, it starts with an elated and happy stage where you are under the illusion that this will go on forever. That it will be easy. Then inevitable troubles happen. The key is how these troubles are handled. If spouses make truce after truce, without addressing the issues, there is trouble ahead. Disagreements are fine. Conflicts are natural. Contempt is deadly. That’s why marriage works best when you go all in. It is, paradoxically, the safest approach. If you are half-in, you are surely going to fail. If you don’t go all in, you have no chance of succeeding, although there are risks, significant risks. Brooks firmly states that “settling is immoral because there is another person involved”. That’s why if you don’t go through the first stages of total admiration, it will be hard to keep it going for a long time. So what looks like the least pragmatic approach in the short term, is actually the most pragmatic in the long run.
6. Third commitment: Philosophy/Faith. This is a very interesting section where Brooks describes how he went from being a committed Marxist to a devout Christian. I can relate to his search for a guiding framework. I lived through the last decade of the Soviet Union, its collapse, and the formative years of independent Azerbaijan. As such, I myself and a lot of people around me were clearly in need of such a framework to guide us through our tumultuous lives. Some focused on religion — as Islam became an increasingly more important feature of the society in Azerbaijan. Others remained strongly secular and embraced nationalist ideology. Most are somewhere in between, and some are still searching for what works for them. One of the interesting thoughts I picked up in this section was the reference to Edmund Burke who commented that we shouldn’t rush into dramatic change — we don’t know the unintentional effects it will set off, we can’t fully grasp the complexity of the world around us and as such should have more respect to the prejudices and the traditions of our elders. Brooks goes on to share his thoughts on religion and to be fair, does not try to present religion as a perfect solution. He acknowledges the problems, particularly that religion does not produce that many good and virtuous people. He also cautions against fanaticism, which is “an attempt to over existential insecurity”. Religious people need to go through a struggle of finding a middle ground between an intellectual inferiority complex and a spiritual superiority complex. This often leads to a dogmatic approach and refusal to listen, to intellectual mediocrity, and invasive attempts to care where people use the cover of faith to get into other people’s business. But there are also what Brooks refers to as “ramps” — the things that facilitate “access” to the religious life — the ritual, the prayer, the spiritual consciousness, the language of good and evil, the humility. Overall, very interesting chapter. Don’t skip it if you are not religious. Personally, I have never been a religious person and the operational framework that I have settled on (at this point, it would be wise to say) is the philosophy of Stoicism. It is, often misunderstood, when viewed superficially — summarized as “you have to be strong in the face of challenges”. But there is a lot more to it than that. Yet, I found that Brooks’ descriptions are, at the very least, intellectually stimulating and thought-provoking.
7. Fourth commitment: A Community. This, I think, is the best chapter of the book. As an expat worker for almost two decades, I have rarely ever had a community around me though helping communities in need is what we try to do. Most of my circle are humanitarian workers, like me, who spend most of their lives separated from their families, communities, and home countries. We deal with such isolation by banding together and convincing ourselves that we make this sacrifice to be able to help others. The nobility of the work makes it more difficult to complain about our predicament. But complain we should. Isolation is a problem. We can’t be happy alone. We need lasting connections. In this chapter, Brooks goes to describe the work of individuals who chose to focus on making their communities and neighborhoods better. As he puts it: “the neighborhood is a unit of change”. Despite the possibilities offered by the internet, distance still matters. Behavior is highly contagious. Suicide, obesity, and social mobility, tendencies to smoke or drink or do drugs “happen in networks as people subtly shape one another’s behavior in ways that are beneath the level of consciousness”. When people in the neighborhoods and communities make an effort to convene, to spend time together, to work on things together, it has a long-lasting and not very well-understood impact. But not the kind that is measurable as an indicator for a project. As people don’t let their neighbors become alienated and lonely, as they encourage positive behaviors, and as they “infect” others with their kindness and care, communities transform. But gathering people together is just a start, the community needs what Brooks calls the combustion stories, a narrative that gets people to act, to assume leadership, to genuinely want change. To put “the village over self”. To focus on the long term. To take care of the most vulnerable. To build something together. To detect and deal with a combination of problems that put a person on the wrong path — it takes a series of events before a person becomes homeless, or a school dropout for example. It is rarely ever just one episode. Functional communities know the person who is struggling, and his or her needs and can make a smart, surgical intervention that will make more of a difference than a project. What Brooks refers to as a “thick community” has its collective rituals, shared tasks, a clearly defined shared goal, and often distinct jargon and phrases — essentially its own culture. I will just add that as much as the positives Brooks describes are compelling, tight-knit communities can also drive individuals who do not quite fit into a literal exile. That said, the chapter as a whole offers a number of insights that we can all learn from. For instance, Brooks’ analysis of what makes a community-based activity effective or ineffective is a section I would wholeheartedly recommend humanitarian workers read carefully.

Overall, throughout the book, the sense I got was that the book was so full of hope. It gets the reader to look at the world differently. Perhaps with little more kindness and energy for change. Which, if we are being honest, wouldn’t hurt to have a bit more of.

One thing that Brooks is criticized for is that he does not propose any significant political reform and focuses on what an individual and a community can do — this is often linked to his conservative views. I’ve seen somewhat similar criticism of Stoicism for example — handle your problems, don’t try to change the structures. My problem with this criticism is that it does not recognize that to be able to initiate change, one must have the skills and the insights. No one has these straight out of college. It takes a lifetime of experiences, successes, and failures.

Also, I don’t think Brooks necessarily suggests not trying to make systemic changes — but he is also not naive, like some of the activist-minded individuals, who might think that the “right system” would just fix everything. No system eliminates the need for people to get better and to try to fix things in their immediate surroundings.

At times The Second Mountain feels like a sermon. I don’t mind that. It is not a light reading. Also fine. There are several things that I would love to have a conversation with the author about. For example, can we not take the best of both mountains? Individualism helps us become a better version of ourselves — we can learn, grow, and advance in life. Build a network. Accumulate knowledge and financial resources. Learn from our failures on the first mountain. I don't know if we can be truly impactful on the second mountain if we just skip the first one. Without becoming a better version of yourself, it is hard to make a meaningful contribution to a cause. You accumulate capacity, and you then use this capacity to make a change around you. It does not have to be a huge change at first, but it can snowball.

Or for example, balancing the four commitments — if you put all your energy into your vocation or service to your community, you may not be able to invest enough in your relationship. We need to be careful not to overdo one and damage the others.

Also, helping others has an insidious side to it that we only discover through experience. Dealing with someone else’s trauma has an impact on you too. It is not enough to just love and care, you need to understand that such work requires certain resilience but also knowledge and tools that can help deal with the secondary trauma.

Another interesting topic is the impact of social media. Brooks does not go into this too much, the book is already dense as it is, although he has a chapter called Instagram Life.

Perhaps life is not just two mountains. It is several. Plus hills, valleys, cities, wrong turns, crossroads, and everything else in between. You plan, but you also let your intuition guide you. You want order, but you also let serendipity happen.

Brooks ends the book with a Declaration of Interdependence. Neat. I will end this article with one last quote from the book, that I think perfectly summarizes it: “Life is not a solitary journey. It is building a home together”.

If you enjoyed this read, check out some of my other articles:

• Depression Prophylaxis
• Do Not Overthink the Meaning of Life
• My 7 Takeaways from Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
• Advice from Your Future Self. Applying a Japanese Social Experiment to Personal Growth
• Two Rules
• My 7 Takeaways from Man’s Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl
• Cultivate and Practice Generosity
• My 7 Takeaways from The Obstacle is The Way by Ryan Holiday
• Türkiye Earthquakes of 6 February 2023 — Will We Learn Our Lessons?