In the long run, we shape our lives, and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.

The quotation asserts a lifelong ethic of self-authorship: character and destiny are not fixed gifts but cumulative results of repeated decisions. By stressing “in the long run,” it shifts attention from single turning points to the slow accretion of habits, values, and responses to circumstance. The claim that the process “never ends until we die” frames identity as ongoing formation rather than a completed state. The final sentence—personal responsibility for one’s choices—adds a moral dimension: even amid social pressures and constraints, individuals remain accountable for the direction they take. It is a concise statement of agency, maturity, and ethical self-governance.