How do you enrich your inner life in a culture that cares far more about the externals? Columnist David Brooks marks out for us the forgotten road to character and introduces us to remarkable individuals from history who have walked it.

Most people would agree that a life well-lived is better measured at a funeral than a job interview. But does this consensus match our pursuits, what we bend our thoughts and actions towards? It seems that résumé virtues consume more mental space and ambition than eulogy virtues.

Our education system encourages résumé building to a far greater extent than character building. The public sphere and self-help corner are full of career-enhancing tips. Success in the popular imagination is tied to career and finances.

Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik gives us vocabulary to help us make further sense of these two understandings of virtue. In his book The Lonely Man of Faith, he outlines two parts of our nature, always in tension, sometimes in conflict. He calls them Adam 1 and Adam 2. We can talk about Adam 1 as the part of us inclined toward career and external definitions of success, where success means high pay and recognition for achievements. Adam 1 speaks the language of status and conquest. His questions begin with the word how. His logic is economic and utilitarian: necessary inputs will yield expected outputs.

By contrast, Adam 2 is inclined toward the inner life. He speaks the language of sacrifice and service to others. Success according to Adam 2 is virtue and intimate relationships. His questions begin with the word why. His logic is moral: It is better to give than to receive, and one must give in order to receive.  Strength comes not through conquest but through surrender to something greater than self. Adam 1 is exalted and majestic (or at least aspires to be seen as such); Adam 2 is humble and self-giving.

Success can often bring its own set of failures—pride comes before the fall, after all. Conversely, and often to our surprise, failures bring unexpected successes in the form of life lessons and clearer perspective. In losing ourselves, we find something greater. But how do we nurture Adam 2 in a culture that rarely talks about him and can’t stop talking about Adam 1?

NPR occasionally runs old tapes, shows from years and sometimes decades ago. They recently ran a broadcast from an old variety show called Command Performance, a show for the benefit of both citizens at home and the troops abroad during the Second World War. This particular episode was recorded the day after V-J Day (i.e., Victory over Japan Day) in the summer of 1945.

It featured Cary Grant, Frank Sinatra, Bette Davis, and a number of other celebrities. Bing Crosby was the host, and the tone of the program that day was somber but grateful. The end of the war definitely inspired celebration in parts of the country, but far from chest-beating and howling at the moon, the dominant mood during the original V-J Day was sober-minded reflection and thankfulness. You’d see more celebration over a lineman sacking a quarterback in the fourth quarter. A player does a victory dance and puts his triumphant face in the nearest camera. The difference in celebrations is jarring.

There are some aspects of 1940s culture that we should not wish to replicate. There was more racism, sexism, and anti-Semitism then than there is now. Food was not as flavorful; people tended to be emotionally repressed. Fathers who’d never heard a kind, encouraging word from their own fathers continued the sad legacy with their own children. There were fewer opportunities for all sectors of society.

At the same time, the undercurrent of humility, of self-examination, a willingness to question and curtail desires, and an awareness of limitations was far greater in that generation. Popular culture and artifacts of that day reflected this humility and subtlety: no graphic T’s for broadcasting your viewpoints, no vanity license plates, no bragging about alma maters or getaway destinations of choice on your vehicle nor virtue signaling with your pet causes—typewriters in those days didn’t even have an exclamation point! Social conventions of the day preempted the swollen head. Even among celebrities, there was a self-effacing modesty to movie stars like Gregory Peck and James Stewart.

The Culture of Humility has been replaced by the Culture of Big Me. In 1948, researchers asked 10,000 youths if they considered themselves a very important person. About 12 percent responded “yes.” In 1989, 77 to 80 percent of youths answered the same question in the affirmative. Concurrent with the rising sense of self-importance is a growing hunger for fame. As late as 1976, fame ranked priority 15 of the 16 options from which subjects could select. Just 30 years later, more than half of American youths rank fame among their chief aspirations. By a wide margin, most teenage girls surveyed said they’d rather be Justin Bieber’s personal secretary than secretary to the president of Harvard.

From Disney to Ellen DeGeneres to Girl Scouts to Joel Osteen, culture consistently puts self at the center. The beauty of humility has been lost in the shuffle for self-aggrandizement. When we become aware of who we are—not just our strengths but our limitations—and become vigilant against the temptations toward pride and arrogance, it opens up depths that self-congratulation bars us from exploring.

There are a number of things to bear in mind in the struggle to cultivate Adam 2 in your life.

One is that there is a predictable structure that pervades the lives of those who have desired Adam 2. It’s a descent followed by an ascent, a U-Curve. The path to character often involves moral crisis, confrontation, and recovery. Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard wrote that, “Only the one who descends into the underworld rescues the beloved.” This theme of descent preceding ascent is common throughout literature, mythology, and religious traditions. Jesus taught that unless a seed falls into the ground and dies, it will not grow and produce fruit. Alice had to become small to gain entrance into Wonderland. Countless heroes in Greek mythology, from Odysseus to Hercules, Orpheus to Psyche had to descend to the realm of the dead in order to achieve a higher end. They were not the same for the struggle.

Also, don’t forget that you don’t have to go through the belly of the “U” alone. It’s not only unadvisable—it’s impossible. No one achieves great self-possession, humility, and goodness in isolation. Pride, greed, and envy will crush a person who tries to beat them alone. It takes the support of family, friends, counselors, traditions, institutions, and—for those inclined toward faith—God.

Another thing to bear in mind is that, though the road to character is often described as a fight or a struggle, it is not merely struggle in the bloody battle sense of the word. The mystic Thomas Merton compares the soul to an athlete who needs a worthy opponent in order to be invigorated and grow. Moral realists emphasize austerity and hard things as the best path to virtue, and challenge and self-denial are part of the story. But Adam 2 is also shaped through encouraging friendships, through love, and even pleasure. Good art has a way of expanding our emotional palate and our sensitivity to beauty; literature can inspire us to imitate a better way.

There are numerous dimensions to character that could be expounded upon, like self-examination, self-conquest, self-mastery, dignity, and well-ordered love. The life and transformation of Saint Augustine sheds light on a number of these virtues and the common obstacles to them.

Augustine was born in modern-day Algeria in North Africa in 354 as the Roman Empire was declining. He was born into an upper-middle class family to a passive, wealth-preoccupied father and a devoted but domineering mother, Monica. She was a bold and competent woman, and her highest hopes for her son Augustine were spiritual, namely that he would embrace the Christian faith that had spread across the Roman world.

Augustine had other plans, however. In his book Confessions, he articulates his circuitous and painful journey to God. He lived in a world that blended elements of Greco-Roman pagan culture, which lauded a carefree and spontaneous mode of operating. In contrast to this Hellenism was a coexistent Hebraism, which believed strongly in a universal order, and that only through self-conquest and relinquishing individual will could one submit to the will of God. Self-denial was a tough sell against the backdrop of an indulgent paganism.

Augustine was drawn to Stoic philosophy and Greek and Roman mythologies. He left home for further schooling and describes his early life as wild and tumultuous. He was ruled by his passions. He cast himself headlong into one sexual encounter after another, hating himself but hoping for love around the corner of each exploit. Augustine’s appetites seemed to border on addiction.

He found some comfort among the Manicheans, a gnostic cult where he enjoyed a feeling of intellectual superiority and a sense of belonging. But Augustine found himself remarkably unhappy. He was divided within himself. He wanted a life aligned with truth, but didn’t want to give up his career, orgies, or materialistic pursuits. He would later pray, “Make me virtuous—but not yet.” He tried to make himself better through sheer force of will, but he continued to relapse.

Like Augustine, we also approach the road to character like homework. We try to achieve Adam 2 outcomes of rich inner life through Adam 1 tactics of conquest: do these certain activities and voila! you will achieve virtue. And, like Augustine, we have to stay vigilant against that sneaky pride. Augustine came to believe that the most radical change came from giving up the belief that he could bring about his own change. The very belief that he could save himself had been the very obstacle to his redemption. The method was the issue.

Pride puts us in a precarious position. We are easily wounded because people tend to treat us with less reverence than we think we deserve. Pride has us posturing, spending more time calculating how to convince others we are happy than genuinely being happy. Whether someone isolates and indulges in self-pity or brags about accomplishments, the root of pride is the same. Whether you are constantly giving yourself 5-star or 2-star ratings, it's still self-preoccupation. There was a pivotal moment in Augustine’s life, as he wept in a garden over one of Paul’s epistles, that he began to reorder his loves. The self, which had occupied a supreme position, was brought to a lower, more realistic position, and so the good things of life were more enjoyable as well. As his pride diminished, so did his peace and contentment increase.

Augustine described the unexpected paradox well when he wrote, “Where there’s humility, there’s majesty; where there’s weakness, there’s might; where there’s death, there is life.”

Johnny Unitas and Joe Namath were star quarterbacks facing off for Super Bowl III in 1969.  They were both from steel towns in western Pennsylvania, but they were born ten years apart and raised with two disparate moral atmospheres.

Johnny Unitas’s disposition reflected an old culture. He was self-effacing, and viewed his job of playing football as just that: a job. He earned an honest living no differently than a construction worker or a plumber would. Unitas was unassuming, but no-nonsense and unafraid. The boys of western Pennsylvania prided themselves on being able to handle pain. He was also one to take responsibility for his actions, and sometimes even the actions of others. He’d shout at his receivers who didn’t run their routes right, but report those incidents to the press as his own errors.

Joe Namath was born in the same part of town, but he couldn’t have been more different than Unitas. He prided himself on being the “fun guy.” He was strident, confident, and ostentatious in style and manner. Namath was a rebel, not unlike the rebel without a cause who’d captivated youth culture at that time. He was the son of divorced immigrants who resented his heritage and wanted the reputation of cool kid. He paid the NFL a fine to keep his Fu Manchu mustache. His autobiography titled I Can’t Wait Until Tomorrow ‘Cause I Get Better Looking Every Day is a telling glimpse into Namath’s perception of (and obsession with) himself.

Namath’s self-glorifying attitude led to a new normal for professional athletes: self-expression, grand endorsements, and being perceived as the part that’s greater than the sum of the parts.

Some would look at the cases of Unitas and Namath as illustrative of the shift away from humility and virtue in the 1960s. There was the Greatest Generation, the argument usually goes, when people were community–oriented, exemplified sacrifice, and modesty, but then along came the Baby Boomers in the 1960s who were self-absorbed and viewed self-restraint as prudish and oppressive. This interpretation doesn’t match all the facts or go back far enough.

It’s hard to understand the shift without the backdrop of the Hebraic and Christian traditions and the strong moral realism they impressed on the Western imagination. This moral realism dimmed well before the 1960s.

Moral realism found a formidable adversary in the 1700s when moral romanticism became popular. Unlike moral realists, who took human weakness seriously, moral romantics placed a great emphasis on human goodness. The moral realists mistrusted the individual and had more faith in tradition and institutions, whereas the romantics trusted the individual but mistrusted the established norms and customs.

Ideally, these two threads both exist and converse within a culture, and, for a time, they did. Barring the artists, moral realism always had the upper hand. People exemplified this realism, often not knowing it as such, which was the first step in its departure from the dialogue with moral romanticism. The moral vocabulary diminished and died, and, as the Second World War ended, there was an optimism that supported the more romantic ideas of human goodness. Self-restraint and humility became oppressive and associated with darker days of war and economic depression. It was time to relax, enjoy life, and end the decade and a half of deprivation. The rise of ads and entertainment-oriented technologies at this time is no coincidence.

Intellectuals also began to put a more positive spin on human nature. They accused thinkers like Augustine of a heavy-handed preoccupation with sin. The Power of Positive Thinking was a best seller for almost two years. Carl Rogers initiated a movement called humanistic psychology, which focused on the human capacity for growth instead of neurosis, as Freud usually did.

From these streams of thought came a new vocabulary to understand oneself and find satisfaction in life: self-expression, self-love, self-acceptance, self-esteem—are we noticing a theme?

The brief survey of cultural trends is not another story-of-decline diatribe. There were plenty of women and minorities who benefitted from a more balanced view of self. But the change from seeing self as Little Me to Big Me also encouraged Larger-than-Life Me, and has made it more natural to feed Adam 1 than get in touch with Adam 2.   

Augustine is just one of numerous individuals who descended into the valley of humility and ascended on the other side. There are numerous individuals who submitted to the struggle, accepted limitations, confronted shortcomings, ruthlessly interrogated their motives, and sought to prioritize their loves properly, like Dwight Eisenhower, Samuel Johnson, Doris Day, George Eliot, and Bayard Rustin.

Notice the tremendous diversity of personalities and cultures represented: humanitarians, activists, military leaders, artists, writers, and intellectuals. The particular path down the road to character varies from person to person, but it will inevitably involve a descent into the valley of humility, which is a kind of death, then to the fruits of virtuous living that are recognizable across time and culture: humility, gratitude, service, and self-sacrifice. Whatever your circumstances and struggles might be, there’s ample opportunity to encourage a flourishing Adam 2.