And In Stories, Endings Matter.

In The End, People Don't View Their Life As Merely The Average Of All Its Moments-which, After All, Is Mostly Nothing Much Plus Some Sleep. For Human Beings, Life Is Meaningful Because It Is A Story. A Story Has A Sense Of A Whole, And Its Arc Is Determined By The Significant Moments, The Ones Where Something Happens. Measurements Of People's Minute-by-minute Levels Of Pleasure And Pain Miss This Fundamental Aspect Of Human Existence. A Seemingly Happy Life Maybe Empty. A Seemingly Difficult Life May Be Devoted To A Great Cause. We Have Purposes Larger Than Ourselves.

As Economists Have Often Pointed Out, We Pay Doctors For Quantity, Not Quality. As They Point Out Less Often, We Also Pay Them As Individuals, Rather Than As Members Of A Team Working Together For Their Patients. Both Practices Have Made For Serious Problems.

You May Not Control Life's Circumstances, But Getting To Be The Author Of Your Life Means Getting To Control What You Do With Them.

When We Lived In A Society Where We Had Large Families That Lived Together, Especially In Agricultural Societies Like My Grandfather And Father Grew Up In, The Result Is You Always Had Family Around To Take Care Of You.

There Are Times When You Have Sharp Elbows, And People Are Trying To Muscle You Out Of Certain Meetings - Because Then People Could Leak To The Press That You Had A Role In Certain Decisions. I, At Twenty-six, Was Very Impatient And Didn't Know How To Keep My Powder Dry. I Was Running A Team Of Seventy-five People When I Had Never Been A Boss. I Was The Worst Boss Ever.