To thine own self…
I often consider the term self-actualization. I’m not sure exactly how someone determines that they have self-actualized – that they’ve fulfilled their potential as human beings. But it seems like a challenging and confusing, albeit admirable, way to live your life.
After I recently mentioned to my husband that I wanted to put more “meaning” into my life, that I’d been feeling stagnant and stuck, he forwarded me an old interview with Viktor Frankl, the psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor whose “logotherapy” was introduced in his highly-regarded book, Man’s Search for Meaning. Logotherapy centers around the belief that the search for meaning is what significantly motivates humans. Frankl wrote extensively about this existential search and the values which can lead to fulfillment of a concrete meaning (i.e., self-actualization). However, he pointed out that the goal is not self-actualization. Rather, self-actualization can be a byproduct of embracing three kinds of values: Creative, Experiential, and Attitudinal. Creative values are what one finds by creating a work or doing a deed. Experiential values are those realized by experiencing something or encountering someone (e.g., beauty, nature, people). And Attitudinal values are what a person discovers by the attitude she/he takes toward unavoidable suffering (i.e., one's outlook).
When I meditate, I find the words “growth”, “change”, and “evolution” sometimes involuntarily seeping into my consciousness. I’ll notice this, then let it go, because my main objective when I meditate is to just feel, experience, and be, but not think too much, and certainly not plan or analyze. Still, I wonder why these words pop up, almost like a mantra. Do I think that mentally chanting these words will somehow have a positive result? Perhaps I have regarded growth-change-evolution as the pillars of motivation in my life, but therein lies the problem.
That’s exactly the wrong kind of message I’ve been sending myself.
Growing, changing and evolving aren’t stepping stones; they are what can result from doing, creating, experiencing and feeling. When I reflect on Frankl’s interview, I realize that it is embracing and trying to live the values he outlined which have positive results and give life meaning. What I need to do to release myself from the “stuckness” I’ve been experiencing is to focus on the values I am not fully embracing, or which I’ve allowed to slacken, in my everyday life. What do I stand for and what is most important to me? What do I need to add or change in my life in order to be the truest possible version of myself?
I’ve put Man’s Search for Meaning on my to-read list for this fall. It will be heavy content I’m sure, as it concerns Frankl’s perspective as a prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp and details his experience. But I’ve heard that it is incredibly inspirational and unexpectedly optimistic, with life lessons that are still relevant more than 75 years after publication.
