Forgetting Ourselves on Purpose: Vocation and the Ethics of Ambition

Foreword by Robert Coles.

Preface--And an Invitation.

What This Book Is About.

What This Book Does.

How to Read This Book.

Acknowledgments.

One: Ask Me What I 'm Living For.

Doubting Pam.

Vocation and Ambition.

Compassion in Exile:Dickey 's Story.

Wanna-Be Saint.

Reawakening Our Epiphanies of Recruitment.

Practice: Ask Me What I 'm Living For.

Practice: Ask Me What I Think Is Keeping Me from Living Fully for the Thing I Want to Live For.

Two: Failing at Success.

My Dinner with Valentino.

William James and the Desire for Something More.

The Sisters of the Cenacle and How to Sneakinto Heaven.

Practice: Remembering to Forget Ourselves.

Two Practices: Finding Yourself by Losing Yourself.

Practice: Why Do We Do That?

Three: Ivan Ilyich,John Dean,and I:How We Deceive Ourselves.

Dean and Ilyich.

The Eraser and the Mendacious Mantra.

Practice: Rationalization: A User's Guide.

Four: If I 'm Really Something,You MustBe Nothing Much.

A Short Tirade.

The Hidden Fountains and Gardens of the Heart.

Practice: Walker Percy and Spiritual Indirection.

Three Lies: A Study in Spiritual Indirection.

Practices: Mirroring Ambition.

Five: Forgetting Ourselves on Purpose.

Insight from Sri Lanka.

They're Not Hypocrites;

They Just Forgot.

Wounded Audacity.

Beatitude: Feeling the Pleasure of God.

Practice: Days of Remembrance.

Remedial Practice.

Six: The Meritocracy Machine.

Harvard and Other Problems with Admissions.

Practice: Reasons and Rationalizations for the AdmissionsCommittee.

Harvard Divinity School and Other Problems withAcceptance.

Practice: Alternative Reading Skills.

Practice: Planning an Alternative New Year 'sCelebration.

Afterword: Occupations and Preoccupations.

Practice: Captain Midnight and Other FailedProjection Devices.

Notes.

The Author.

Index.