The Pursuit of... Self-Actualization (Essential Excerpt)
Where Jesus, Maslow, and Aristotle agree on the purpose of life. And, the problem with putting pleasure and comfort first.
Hello Bar-setters!
Today, I want to look at the most important concepts in my youth development philosophy. I’ll start with this essential excerpt:
When we plant a rose seed in the earth, we notice that it is small, but we do not criticize it as “rootless and stemless.” We treat it as a seed, giving it the water and nourishment required of a seed. When it first shoots up out of the earth, we don’t condemn it as immature and underdeveloped; nor do we criticize the buds for not being open when they appear. We stand in wonder at the process taking place and give the plant the care it needs at each stage of its development. The rose is a rose from the time it is a seed to the time it dies. Within it, at all times, it contains its whole potential. It seems to be constantly in the process of change; yet at each state, at each moment, it is perfectly all right as it is.
Source: The Inner Game of Tennis (pg. 21), Timothy Gallwey
I love this excerpt and what it has to say about parenting, teaching, and living well.
We are all in the process of becoming our full potential—what we were made to become. This is no excuse for complacency. Just the opposite, in fact. It is a call to action and a duty to continue growing.
The famed psychologist Abraham Maslow called this process self-actualization, which he described as “the desire to become more and more what one is, to become everything that one is capable of becoming.”
He argued that hedonistic pleasure seeking wasn’t a good path to happiness because we have a far more fundamental need to self-actualize our potential. To Maslow, pursuing self-actualization was the route to human flourishing.
Jesus seems to have instructed us to pursue self-actualization, as well. He ends the Sermon on the Mount with a confusing proclamation:
"You, therefore, must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect." (Matthew 5:48)
But we are not capable of perfection. To make sense of this verse, we must go to the original translation. We took the Greek teleios and translated it as perfect. But it would be more accurate to translate teleios as “wholeness,” “completeness,” or…
…“self-actualization.”
Jesus is saying that we must become whole—that, like a rose bud, we must continue to develop to the fullest extent of the potential that we are born for—that we must develop into the complete, self-actualized version of ourselves.
There is a lot of overlap between this idea of teleios, or self-actualization, and another Greek word: arete.
According to Dr. Jonathan Haidt, arete is:
Virtue. Not the sort of uptight, pleasure-hating Puritanism that some people now associate with that word, but a broader kind of virtue that goes back to ancient Greece. The Greek word arete meant excellence, virtue, or goodness, especially of a functional sort. The arete of a knife is to cut well; the arete of an eye is to see well; the arete of a person is... well, that’s one of the oldest questions of philosophy: what is the true nature, function, or goal of a person, relative to which we can say that he or she is living well or badly?
What is the arete of a person? You might say it is to approach self-actualization.
This is complex and individual of course. It depends on each person’s context and personal characteristics. And it is a balancing act. Tiger Woods may have reached his golf potential, but that isn’t the same as self-actualization. We’re meant for more than just the maximization of one domain.
Aristotle claimed that human flourishing is “an activity of soul in conformity with excellence or virtue.” By this, Aristotle meant that long term happiness is the result of cultivating greater arete—that the richest possible life was only possible when you committed to realizing your potential (broadly speaking) and becoming the fullest manifestation of your nature.
The fullest manifestation of your nature.
Maslow called this self-actualization.
Jesus called this teleios.
The purpose of parenting is to assist with this pursuit. Likewise, it should be the primary function of an education.
But self-actualization is less of a goal than a never-ending process.
To live with greater arete and pursue self-actualization, we must shift from a transactional to a transformational mindset. We don’t learn to earn. We don’t cultivate arete so that we can be happy. We just try to do what we know we should do.
This reminds me of my favorite George Bernard Shaw quote:
Never mind likes and dislikes; they are of no consequence. Just do what must be done. This may not be happiness, but it is greatness.
We’ll all come up short, of course. But the basic philosophy seems to boil down to doing your best to become your best and do what is best. This won’t guarantee happiness. But I’d wager it’s more likely to get you there than any other path.
Thank you for reading and sharing.
Carry the fire!
Shane