Rollo May, the American existential-humanistic psychologist, was an apologist for the idea that we must struggle for every incremental win of consciousness and freedom, but that the results of this struggle, what we might call 'authentic personhood', are incredibly satisfying.
He writes, "some months into psychotherapeutic work, little changes: the person begins to recall dreams regularly; or in one session he takes the initiative in stating that he wants to change the subject and get help with a different problem, or one day he can say that he felt angry when the therapist said such and such, or he is able to cry when previously he never could feel much of anything, or suddenly he laughs with spontaneity and wholeheartedness, or is able to state that he doesn’t like Mary with whom he has been conventional friends for years but does like Carolyn. In such ways, slight as they may seem, emerging self-awareness goes hand in hand with enlargening power to direct his own life.
"As a person gains more consciousness of self, his range of choice and freedom proportionately increase. Freedom is cumulative: one choice made with an element of freedom makes greater freedom possible for the next. Each exercise of freedom enlarges the circumference of the circle of one’s self. There is a margin in which the alive human being can be aware of what is determining him. Illustrated: Someone sick with tuberculosis is in almost every action conditioned to the facts of the sanatorium under a strict regime, resting such and such time, walking fifteen minutes a day. But there is all the difference in the world in how persons relate to the reality of the disease. Some give up, and literally invite their own deaths. Some do what they’re supposed to do, but resent the fact that nature or god has given them such a disease. Outwardly they comply, inwardly they rebel. These patients don’t die but they generally don’t get well.
"Like rebels in any area of life, they remain on a plateau perpetually marking time. Others frankly confront the fact that they are seriously ill. They let this tragic fact sink into consciousness through plentiful hours of contemplation as they lie in beds on sanatorium porches. They seek in their consciousness of self to understand what was wrong in their lives beforehand that they should have succumbed to this illness. They use the cruelly determined fact of being sick as an avenue to new self-knowledge. These are those who can best choose and affirm the methods and self-discipline, which can never be put into rules, which will carry them victoriously through their disease. They are the ones who will not only achieve physical health but who are also ultimately enlarged, enriched, and strengthened by their experience of having had the disease. They affirm their elemental freedom, they meet a severely deterministic fact with freedom. How we relate to our facts is everything. Freedom is not a mere yes or no but the power to mold and create ourselves, to become who we are.
We must choose ourselves. That is, he continues, "freedom does not come automatically; it is achieved. It is not gained by a single bound but each day."
When we have consciously chosen to live, two things happen to us, according to Rollo May.
One, the responsibility to ourselves takes on new meaning. We accept responsibility for our own life not as something with which we have been saddled, a burden forced upon us, but as something we have chosen for ourselves. We exist as a result of a decision we have made ourselves.
Two, discipline becomes self-discipline, not commanded, but because we choose with greater freedom what we want to do with our own life. Discipline is necessary for the sake of the values we wish to achieve.
He writes, "some months into psychotherapeutic work, little changes: the person begins to recall dreams regularly; or in one session he takes the initiative in stating that he wants to change the subject and get help with a different problem, or one day he can say that he felt angry when the therapist said such and such, or he is able to cry when previously he never could feel much of anything, or suddenly he laughs with spontaneity and wholeheartedness, or is able to state that he doesn’t like Mary with whom he has been conventional friends for years but does like Carolyn. In such ways, slight as they may seem, emerging self-awareness goes hand in hand with enlargening power to direct his own life.
"As a person gains more consciousness of self, his range of choice and freedom proportionately increase. Freedom is cumulative: one choice made with an element of freedom makes greater freedom possible for the next. Each exercise of freedom enlarges the circumference of the circle of one’s self. There is a margin in which the alive human being can be aware of what is determining him. Illustrated: Someone sick with tuberculosis is in almost every action conditioned to the facts of the sanatorium under a strict regime, resting such and such time, walking fifteen minutes a day. But there is all the difference in the world in how persons relate to the reality of the disease. Some give up, and literally invite their own deaths. Some do what they’re supposed to do, but resent the fact that nature or god has given them such a disease. Outwardly they comply, inwardly they rebel. These patients don’t die but they generally don’t get well.
"Like rebels in any area of life, they remain on a plateau perpetually marking time. Others frankly confront the fact that they are seriously ill. They let this tragic fact sink into consciousness through plentiful hours of contemplation as they lie in beds on sanatorium porches. They seek in their consciousness of self to understand what was wrong in their lives beforehand that they should have succumbed to this illness. They use the cruelly determined fact of being sick as an avenue to new self-knowledge. These are those who can best choose and affirm the methods and self-discipline, which can never be put into rules, which will carry them victoriously through their disease. They are the ones who will not only achieve physical health but who are also ultimately enlarged, enriched, and strengthened by their experience of having had the disease. They affirm their elemental freedom, they meet a severely deterministic fact with freedom. How we relate to our facts is everything. Freedom is not a mere yes or no but the power to mold and create ourselves, to become who we are.
We must choose ourselves. That is, he continues, "freedom does not come automatically; it is achieved. It is not gained by a single bound but each day."
When we have consciously chosen to live, two things happen to us, according to Rollo May.
One, the responsibility to ourselves takes on new meaning. We accept responsibility for our own life not as something with which we have been saddled, a burden forced upon us, but as something we have chosen for ourselves. We exist as a result of a decision we have made ourselves.
Two, discipline becomes self-discipline, not commanded, but because we choose with greater freedom what we want to do with our own life. Discipline is necessary for the sake of the values we wish to achieve.