" He stopped and after a while went on. 'Try to choose carefully, Arren, when the great choices muct be made. When I was young I had to choose between the life of being and the life of doing. And I leapt to the latter like a trout to a fly. But each deed you do, each act, blinds you to itself and to its consequences, and makes you act again and yet again. Then very seldom do you come upon a space, a time like this, between act and act, when you may stop and simply be. Or wonder who, after all, you are.'
How could such a man, thought Arren, be in doubt as towho and what he is? He had believed such doubts were reserved for the young, who had not done anything yet. "

― Ursula K. Le Guin , The Farthest Shore (Earthsea Cycle, #3)