In one of the early Fulfillment programs, at the prestigious Minneapolis Women's Club, one sophisticated woman asked the
question that often comes up in our seminars. She called to Roberta;
Please
tell us what you mean by the meaning of life. We seem to have
all kinds of different ideas at our table.
Of course they did!
Roberta would have been surprised and
disappointed had not a group of intelligent and educated women had several different opinions. Given the
unique nature of each personality, mind-set and life-style,
along with the many subjective aspects of meaning and belonging,
humans often find fulfillment in different ways.
Only persons
with delusions of spiritual superiority and closed mind-sets are
so egoistic that they set themselves up as examples for everyone
else to follow. We certainly meet faithful disciples who are
much more devout than we ourselves! No doubt many are better
husbands and wives. Therefore, asking us the one true meaning of
life; the nature of truth absolute, is like asking a
football coach the one best play with which to win a
championship game. Neither he nor we can say, for both football
and life have too many variables for a simple answer.
A coach must consider the stamina of the
players on both teams, the condition of the playing field, the
time left in the game and much more, before attempting a game
winning play. To complicate matters, the best possible play for
one game may be the worst for the next. It depends on many
circumstances, many of which are beyond any single person's
control. However, if as a coach we cannot tell you the one true
meaning of life, we can like a championship coach, describe the
kind of game that must be played to come out a winner.
Obviously, you cannot win everything or people would shun you;
but you can create mutually satisfying relationships. Of course,
that's what we teach in our courses. Remember, the first factor
in living a fulfilling life is that we must find our own
satisfaction by creating some combination of meaning and
belonging for ourselves. No one, not even God, can deliver
consistent satisfaction to you on a silver platter. This kind of
effort always requires sweat and often draws blood.
We now want you to consider the
Logotherapy Pyramid shown below. Logotherapy is Viktor
Frankl’s word for spirit-healing.
Becoming
- PHILOSOPHICAL - Purpose-Permanence Principle
Doing - PSYCHOLOGICAL -
Power-Prestige Principle
Having - PHYSICAL
- Pleasure-Pain Principle
We discuss the
physical, psychological
and philosophical
aspects of life as if
they are separate but only because we can't write about three
things at once. They are actually as integrated in each
personality as the ingredients of a cake after it is baked.
However, every aspect of personality does
have a dominant influence at different times in our attitudes,
activities and relationships. As psychological great Abraham
Maslow wrote, we have an ascending progression of needs as we
move from the physical to the psychological and on to the
philosophical. Unlike Maslow, however, we teach that our moods
and needs are ever fluid, are never as static as he assumed.
Each person is a dynamic individual of many interests that
function more or less together according to our state of body,
mind and spirit at any given time.
THE PHYSICAL
-- In this aspect of life, we typically live according to
the pleasure/pain principle suggested by Sigmund Freud as the
basis of human attitudes and motives in the first Viennese
school of psychotherapy. This view of life was later refined by
B.F. Skinner as Behaviorism. Jard quips that Skinner built a
long career and gained much professional mileage from the rather
simple idea that people really do prefer a pat on the back to a
swift kick on the rump. Unfortunately, the world still teems
with politicians, managers, teachers, police and parents who
will not apply this basic fact of motivation. They brutalize
people and then cannot understand why their victims resist and
frustrate them, why other persons refuse to let them get away
with all of life's rewards.
In the physical aspect of life we
usually gain our satisfaction through the having of things that
give us pleasure and avoid pain. We all want good food and
shelter, nice clothes and transportation - those things many
have won so easily for generations in an affluent civilization
that is now bogging down in this Globalized, post-communism era.
We have no trouble accepting the pleasure/pain principle, so far
as it goes, although for thousands of years many theologians and
sects like the Essenes and Puritans thought pleasure contrary to
spirituality. Particularly sexual joy, because of a great
medieval theological split between the aspects of life called
the flesh and those called spirit. The early New Englanders even
built their homes in neat little squares so they could keep a
judgmental eye on one another lest the neighbors get any real
fun out of life. They also drowned women whom they feared had
become witches by fornicating physically with Satan. And yet,
pleasure is better than pain. Jard once closed a car door on his
hand so he knows about pain. Even more so, does Roberta who went
through three child births. Both experiences were what
psychologists call a one trial learning event. We learned all we
ever wanted to know about closing car doors on hands or having a
baby the first time we did it!
Even so, winning pleasure and avoiding pain
is never good enough to make life consistently fulfilling. We
must continue maturing up life's pyramid, going beyond the
having of things in the physical aspects of life. If you don't
buckle down to a mission of importance to yourself and to
society, satisfaction shall surely pass you by. You must limit
your games in order to win good grades in school, love someone
beside yourself to create a healthy family and labor for years
to build a satisfying career. What you plant and cultivate is
what matures in your existential garden. We have found no free
lunch.
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL
-- In this aspect of living well, we tend to follow the
power/prestige principle of achieving things that offer us
self-esteem and gain the respect of other women and men. Alfred
Adler first identified this approach to motivation and
eventually fulfillment. He believed that merely avoiding pain
and winning pleasure is not good enough to generate consistent
satisfaction in an affluent society. We all need prestige and
potency in our activities and relationships. Eric Berne took
Adler's views about the human desire for power and prestige to
the next level in Transactional Analysis. Once again, we find
nothing wrong with that. We understand and appreciate Adler's
insights. We also prefer climbing up life's totem pole a bit,
rather than remaining the poor grunt at the bottom that holds
everything up with brute strength and awkwardness. We enjoy
walking into a book store and seeing three of our titles on the
racks. There is satisfaction in being potent enough to
accomplish something meaningful and being strong enough to
handle bullies who would humiliate us and the people we love.
Even so, power and prestige are not enough, even with pleasure
included, to make life consistently fulfilling. As Tough Tony
said, we must keep pedaling our bicycles uphill.
THE PHILOSOPHICAL
--
God empowers us, at the peak of our experiences and
relationships, to mature beyond the having of things and the
completion of tasks that make life productive. We should focus
our powers on becoming what we have the potential to be. We live
according to the purpose/permanence principle first hinted at by
Frankl and then refined by Jard. This approach that Frankl
called the will to meaning, after he called Freud's concepts a
will to pleasure and Adler's concepts a will to power, formed
the basis of the third Viennese School Of Psychotherapy. Rather
than reinventing the wheel, rather than writing about a will to
meaning, Jard formulated the purpose/permanence principle which
better explains this as a psychospiritual concept. We have long
known that a spiritual life-style must be purposeful and
practical to be satisfying, that we need the sense of permanence
coming from connecting to God and belonging in a family, a
company or a congregation in which we share faith, hope and
love. Thus;
FULFILLMENT = f
(Meaning x Belonging).
Spiritual maturity isn't an all or nothing
proposition, of course. Normal women and men who are maturing
through the purpose/permanence principle still desire pleasure
rather than pain and prestige rather than being devalued.
Roberta sees nothing good coming from the way Mexican
flagilistas and some masochists of the Opus Dei Catholic sect,
flog themselves with thorns, and Muslims beat themselves bloody
with swords and chains during religious ceremonies. Jard
personally heard the Opus Dei’s American Bishop discuss the need
for his priests to repeat the physical sufferings of Christ in
order to be good servants of God. Actually, none of that
transfers into offering service to needy people. It comes from a
neurotic medieval sense of piety -- the narcissistic claim;
Because I love God more than
you worthless sinners do, I'll suffer to prove my loyalty to
him.
Have we got news for you! God doesn’t care
as long as we are not hurting ourselves or others. The Cosmic Creator
knows that self-punishment of all kinds is a neurotic way of
dealing with the guilt aspect of the tragic elements of life.
And so do we. Problems often develop when persons fixate too
long in the lower aspects of living wisely, when we accept the
nihilistic life-style from which God and spirituality are
excluded.
Mini-Quiz
How would you define or describe
the meaning of life as you see it?
Becoming
- PHILOSOPHICAL - Purpose-Permanence Principle
Doing - PSYCHOLOGICAL -
Power-Prestige Principle
Having - PHYSICAL
- Pleasure-Pain Principle
Describe how you shall strive to
have, to
do
and to
become,
whatever will make your life psychospiritually fulfilling.
Warmly,
Jard & Roberta DeVille
