Here’s a little something from our pal Pete of Full Permission Living, who finds himself agreeing with the New York Times’s Op-Ed writer David Brooks more and more.

Wow! I’m having trouble with these occasional pieces by David Brooks that I really agree with. Today’s latest, called "The Obama-Clinton Issue," is not just a great assessment of Obama’s appeal, but of the essential ingredients that make for a good leader. [http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/18/opinion/18brooks.html?ref=opinion]

Here are some excerpts from Brooks’ editorial:

– "With the presidency, character and self-knowledge matter more than even experience. "

– "Obama is an inner-directed man in a profession filled with insecure outer-directed ones. He was forged by the process of discovering his own identity from the scattered facts of his childhood."

– "He has a core, and was able to maintain his equipoise, for example, even as his campaign stagnated through the summer and fall."

– "Moreover, he has a worldview that precedes political positions."
– "In the course of this struggle to discover who he is, Obama clearly learned from the strain of pessimistic optimism that stretches back from Martin Luther King Jr. to Abraham Lincoln. This is a worldview that detests anger as a motivating force, that distrusts easy dichotomies between the parties of good and evil, believing instead that the crucial dichotomy runs between the good and bad within each individual."

– "Obama also has powers of observation that may mitigate his own inexperience and the isolating pressures of the White House."

– "Obama reveals glimpses of the ability to step outside his own ego and look at reality in uninhibited and honest ways."

I repeat – Wow! Imagine having a leader in the White House who is actually self-aware and able to follow something more than ego? I’d almost given up.

BONUS NOTE FROM PETER: At this time of year, when so many are stressed, exhausted, financially stretched, and desperately hoping for that bonus check, and in the coming weeks heading towards the New Year, inclined to re-evaluate their lifestyles, I thought that this article I wrote on working (and not working) would be timely. It was originally entitled "Full Permission Working." You can find it on my blog at: http://fullpermissionliving.blogspot.com/