In this autobiographical statement, the author conveys several lessons learned over the course of developmental research on social cognition, moral commitment, character, and purpose. The lessons include: (1) always check theoretical claims against real-world observations and intuitions; (2) always start a research program with deep attention to the field’s past achievements, including those made decades ago; (3) employ available insights from humanities domains such as literature, philosophy, and theology; and (4) approach any new research topic with both small-scale idiographic methods in addition to larger-scale nomothetic study methods. The chapter closes with an explanation of the author’s choice to focus on problem-centered research rather than general theory-building, with the hope that studying specific problems would inform theory-building, so that the research benefits would flow both ways, from theory to real-life problems and back again.