I finished this book in July 2024. I recommend this book 8/10.
Why you should read this book:
This is the third book in a four-book series, Courage, Discipline, Justice, and Wisdom. The book deals with justice, not on a legal level, but on the I, the We, and the All. The book contains great stories about Truman, Frederick Douglas, Malcolm X, and Gandhi.
Get your copy here.
🚀 The book in three sentences
The power belongs to the title, not the person's name on the sign.
Your integrity shapes your future. No one said that life was going to be easy or fair.
Live life like the "Campsite rule," and leave things a little better than you found them.
🎨 Impressions
The book made me think about people who chases fame vs. people who became famous by fighting for the rights of others, like, civil rights.
✍️ My favorite quotes
Admiral James Stockdale said, "Integrity is one of those words which many people keep in the desk drawer, labeled 'too hard,'"
📝 My notes and thoughts
P21. Leaving Washington, his car stopping at red lights for the first time in nearly a decade, Truman returned to Independence, Missouri. He'd be asked by a reporter what he did on his first day out of office. "I carried our suitcases up to the attic," he replied, returning painlessly to the life he lived and the person he was before presidency—which is to say, a regular person. Not long after, he was spotted by the side of the highway, having gotten out to help a farmer heard their pigs off the road.
P47. "A better wrestler?" Marcus wrote to himself, perhaps noticing how much energy he was putting into training in the sport he loved. "But not a better citizen, a better person, a better resource in tight places, a better forgiver of faults?" A better parent, not a better professional. A better teacher, not a better taker. The poet Hesiod noted how the carpenter competes with the carpenter and the singer with other singers. It's the energy that drives the world forward but rarely makes people better. We seem only to vie with each other for professional success, not for kindness or civic-mindedness, for fame, not friendship. But what would it look like if more people decided to try to see:
who could be the most trustworthy?
who lived a more ethical life?
who helped the most people?
who could forgive the most grievous wrong?
who prevented the battle instead of won it?
who had the smallest carbon footprint, not the biggest house?
who raised the kindest kids, not whose got into the best college?
P80. "Integrity is one of those words which many people keep in the desk drawer, labeled 'too hard,'" Admiral James Stockdale would reflect after his time in the Hanoi Hilton, the infamous North Vietnamese prison.
P104. The tricky thing is we don't have to tell ourselves we're never going to do it; we can tell a more comforting lie instead: I'll do it later. I'll do it when I'm more secure. I'll do it when it will really count. But this violates Aristotle's view of virtue. It wasn't a thing you arrived at, he said, it was a daily practice—it was a habit. And in this daily practice, we become who we are, or not. "You could be good today," Marcus Aurelias reminded himself, quite possibly as he was deliberating on some similarly controversial decision. "Instead, you choose tomorrow," The longer you stand out on the edge of a diving board, the harder—and less likely—it becomes for you to jump. You get in your own head about it. You come up with reasons. You lose your courage.
P146. Martin Niemöller's famous poem: First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
P160. The doing is a reward. Feel amazing for doing an amazing thing—you don't need anyone to tell you that you are. The Bible reminds us in Matthew 6:2 not to sound the trumpets announcing what you've done. Jesus also reminded his followers that when one looks back behind them when plowing, they allow the horses to drift. So it goes when we look back and admire what we've done, relishing our specialness or generosity. It's a distraction from moving forward, it's a lapse in judgment. But it is hard. We want to hear that our parents are proud of us. We want our spouse to say thank you and acknowledge what we do for them. We want to be made whole for what we've done, given, sacrificed. More than that, we want recognition, respect, we want appreciation, and when we do good things, we want credit.
P193. How we treat the people who work for us, how we treat strangers, this says a lot about us. How we treat the defenseless? The voiceless? Other species? According to Gandhi, it says everything about us. Whatever you have done to the least of my brethren. The Jains of India, a religion that dates back to the sixth century BC and emphasizes respect for all living beings, would, as a a rule, not make their pilgrimages during the rainy season because they didn't want to trample on the new grass underfoot.
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