How to Find Yourself

Cal Thomas | Syndicated Columnist | Updated: Jun 02, 2011

How to Find Yourself

This is commencement season. Most colleges have already graduated their seniors and high schools are about to.

New York Times columnist David Brooks has been monitoring commencement speakers. Most have encouraged students to find themselves, look inside themselves and follow their dreams. Standard stuff.

But Brooks say the reality is few 22-year-olds have even developed a self, because they have very little life experience. He writes, “Fulfillment is a byproduct of how people engage their tasks and can’t be pursued directly. Most of us are egotistical and most are self-concerned most of the time, but it’s nonetheless true that life comes to a point only in those moments when the self dissolves into some task. The purpose in life is not to find yourself. It’s to lose yourself.”

For the follower of Jesus, losing one’s self in him is to really find one’s true self.

This article published on June 1, 2011.

Cal Thomas is a nationally syndicated columnist based in Washington, D.C.         

How to Find Yourself