I've observed over and over that people seem to get a much deeper sense of fulfillment out of something they've done as an act of service than out of the things they do for themselves.
Interpretation
Acts of service provide deeper fulfillment than self-serving actions.
This quote by Edward Norton emphasizes the profound sense of satisfaction and joy that individuals often experience when they engage in selfless acts of service. It suggests that true fulfillment derives not from personal gains but from positively impacting the lives of others, highlighting the importance and value of generosity and compassion in human experience.
In practice
In a speech about community engagement, one could invoke this quote to inspire people to volunteer.
Look, you've got a generation of people coming along who are going to form their own new relationship with the idea of supporting the causes that they care about or changing the world. And these people are not going to do it the way our parents do it.
Basically, I think 21st century conservation is moving toward preserving ecosystems by dealing with the needs of people.
I'm fascinated by the ways in which people express themselves, because their responses are often counter to what they're actually feeling. Like when they're frightened, they tend to freeze. When they're angry, it doesn't always come out as volume. There are wonderful contradictions in the way that people express their emotions.
I think there is a serious corruption in the idea sold through advertising that you can attain spiritual peace through lifestyle and the notion of building your happiness from the outside-in by acquiring things . . . which if you think about it, is the essence of advertising
Life, like poker has an element of risk. It shouldn't be avoided. It should be faced.
In drama, I think, the audience is a willing participant. It's suspending a certain kind of disbelief to try to get something out of a story.
I keep following this sort of hidden river of my life, you know, whatever the topic or impulse which comes, I follow it along trustingly. And I don't have any sense of its coming to a kind of crescendo, or of its petering out either. It is just going steadily along.
I know now that we never get over great losses; we absorb them, and they carve us into different, often kinder, creatures.
No, you never get any fun_x000D_ _x000D_ Out of the things you haven't done.
Many people try to avoid pressure, yet the absence of any tension or pressure usually creates a sense of boredom and the lackluster experience of life that so many people complain about.
I'll get back to the whores and the horses and the booze, while there's time.
I'm only asking you to stop every so often and turn off your mobile device, put down the Angry Birds and the Words with Friends and take a moment. Stop to look up and look around. Pause and check in with yourself - and spend a moment there.
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