The Life A Man Lives

            In “The Summoned Self,” written by David Brooks, he raises the question what kind of life does or should someone live. Brooks states there are “two ways of thinking about your life.” The first is the well-planned life, while the second is the summoned life. This article is intended for the reader to look deeply into their life and what is more important to them.

            If an individual lives a well-planned life, they are to come up with what they want to accomplish overall in their lifetime and their purpose in life. While describing this way of living one’s life, Brooks uses the Harvard Business Review’s article on Clayton Christensen who describes how he would “spend an hour every night reading, thinking, and praying about why God put [him] on this earth.” Once he was able to figure out his purpose, Christensen was able to allocate all of his resources into accomplishing that purpose. An individual can allocate their time for short term gains but for long term ones as well. When devoting quality time to a certain aspect of their life one can tweak the future outcome. This is the idea behind a well-planned life, an individual controlling different aspects of their life in order to bring “a well-rounded fruition.”

            In contrast there is the summoned life which “isn’t a project to be completed; it is an unknowable landscape to be explored.” This is the way of life for someone who is more focused on the situation they are in, instead of focusing on the situation they want to be in. Their decisions are ones based on the moment without contemplating the ramifications of their decisions. Living the well-planned life calls for an individual who is a critical thinker or strategist while the summoned life calls for an individual that is free-spirited and lives on a whim. They view what needs to be accomplished in the present because that is what they are living for. Their decisions are made based off of “sensitive observation and situational awareness, not calculation and long-range planning.”

            Brooks discusses both types of lifestyles; however, he discusses the well-planned life more than the summoned life. While ending his article he focusses on the critical thinking aspect of the well-planned life and praises America for its focus on this lifestyle because it births “lone free [agents] who [create] new worlds.” Brooks does not directly say it but ending his article with “but they are both probably useful for a person trying to live a well-considered life” after comparing the two with America, his words lead the reader to determine that Brooks is an advocate for the well-planned life, encouraging his readers to live their lives this way.