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It Requires Greater Courage To Preserve Inner Freedom, To Move On In One's Inward Journey Into New Realms, Than To Stand Defiantly For Outer Freedom. It Is Often Easier To Play The Martyr, As It Is To Be Rash In Battle. Strange As It Sounds, Steady, Patient Growth In Freedom Is Probably The Most Difficult Task Of All, Requiring The Greatest Courage. Thus If The Term "hero" Is Used In This Discussion At All, It Must Refer Not To The Special Acts Of Outstanding Persons, But To The Heroic Element Potentially In Every Man.

-Rollo May

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It Requires Greater Courage

Rollo May

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It Requires Greater Courage To Preserve Inner Freedom, To Move On In One's Inward Journey Into New Realms, Than To Stand Defiantly For Outer Freedom. It Is Often Easier To Play The Martyr, As It Is To Be Rash In Battle. Strange As It Sounds, Steady, Patient Growth In Freedom Is Probably The Most Difficult Task Of All, Requiring The Greatest Courage. Thus If The Term "hero" Is Used In This Discussion At All, It Must Refer Not To The Special Acts Of Outstanding Persons, But To The Heroic Element Potentially In Every Man.

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Good Art Wounds As Well As Delights. It Must, Because Our Defenses Against The Truth Are Wound So Tightly Around Us. But As Art Chips Away At Our Defenses, It Also Opens Us To Healing Potentialities That Transcend Intellectual Games And Ego-preserving Strategies.

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When Inward Life Dries Up, When Feeling Decreases And Apathy Increases, When One Cannot Affect Or Even Genuinely Touch Another Person, Violence Flares Up As A Daimonic Necessity For Contact, A Mad Drive Forcing Touch In The Most Direct Way Possible.

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Sooner Or Later

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Falling In Love

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A Person Can Meet Anxiety To The Extent That His Values Are Stronger Than The Threat.

We Express Our Being By Creating. Creativity Is A Necessary Sequel To Being.

The Insight Is Born With Anxiety, Guilt And The Joy And Gratification That Is Inseparable From The Actualizing Of A New Idea Or Vision.

Artists Do Not Run Away From Non-being, But By Encountering And Wrestling With It, Force It To Produce Being.

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It Is An Ironic Habit Of Human Beings To Run Faster When We Have Lost Our Way.

Courage Is Not The Absence Of Despair; It Is, Rather, The Capacity To Move Ahead In Spite Of Despair.

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Receptivity Requires A Nimbleness, A Fine-honed Sensitivity In Order To Let One's Self Be The Vehicle Of Whatever Vision May Emerge.

Lacking Positive Myths To Guide Him, Many A Sensitive Contemporary Man Finds Only The Model Of The Machine Beckoning Him From Every Side To Make Himself Over Into Its Image.

We Must Always Base Our Commitment In The Center Of Our Own Being, Or Else No Commitment Will Be Ultimately Authentic.

Physical Courage In Whatever Scene ... Seems To Hinge On Whether The Individual Can Feel He Is Fighting For Others As Well As Himself.

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There Is No Meaningful Yes Unless The Individual Could Also Have Said No.

The Turtle Only Makes Progress When It's Neck Is Stuck Out.

Real Freedom Is The Ability To Pause Between Stimulus And Response, And In That Pause, Choose.

Stimulus And Response

The Opposite Of Courage In Our Society Is Not Cowardice, It Is Conformity.

The Purpose Of Psychotherapy Is To Set People Free.

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The Rebel Is Committed To Giving A Form And Pattern To The World. It Is A Pattern Born Of The Indomitable Thrust Of The Human Mind, The Mind Which Makes Out Of The Mass Of Meaningless Data In The World An Order And A Form.

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All People Are Struggling To Be Creative In Some Way, And The Artist Is The One Who Has Succeeded In This Task Of Life.

It Is An Old And Ironic Habit Of Human Beings To Run Faster When We Have Lost Our Way; And We Grasp More Fiercely At Research, Statistics, And Technical Aids In Sex When We Have Lost The Values And Meaning Of Love.

We Must Be Fully Committed, But We Must Also Be Aware At The Same Time That We Might Possibly Be Wrong. People Who Claim To Be Absolutely Convinced That Their Stand Is The Only Right One...is A Dead Giveaway Of Unconscious Doubt. Commitment Is Healthiest When It Is Not Without Doubt, But In Spite Of Doubt.

Forge In The Smithy Of Your Soul.

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One Of The Easiest Ways To Be Irresponsible About Power Is To Forget You Have It.

All Our Feelings, Like The Artist's Paints And Brush, Are Ways Of Communicating And Sharing Something Meaningful From Us To The World.

Human Freedom Involves Our Capacity To Pause, To Choose The One Response Toward Which We Wish To Throw Our Weight.

I Became A Psychotherapist Because That's Where People Will Unburden Themselves, Where They Will Show What Is In Their Hearts.

By The Creative Act, We Are Able To Reach Beyond Our Own Death.

If The Will Remains In Protest, It Stays Dependent On That Which It Is Protesting Against.

Courage Is Necessary To Make Being And Becoming Possible.

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Ecstasy Is The Accurate Term For The Intensity Of Consciousness That Occurs In The Creative Act.

One Must Have At Least A Readiness To Love The Other Person, Broadly Speaking, If One Is To Be Able To Understand Him.

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Professors Will Lecture With More Inspiration If They Occasionally Alternate The Classroom With The Beach: Authors Will Write Better When, As Macaulay Used To Do, They Write For Two Hours, Then Pitch Quoits, And Then Go Back To Their Writing. But Certainly More Than The Mere Mechanical Alternation Is Involved.

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Neither Kierkegaard Nor Nietzsche Had The Slightest Interest In Starting A Movement – Or A New System, A Thought Which Would Indeed Have Offended Them. Both Proclaimed, In Nietzsche's Phrase, Follow Not Me, But You!

The Relationship Between Commitment And Doubt Is By No Means An Antagonistic One. Commitment Is Healthiest When It Is Not Without Doubt But In Spite Of Doubt.

In Any Discussion Of Religion And Personality Integration The Question Is Not Whether Religion Itself Makes For Health Or Neurosis, But What Kind Of Religion And How Is It Used? Freud Was In Error When He Held That Religion Is Per Se A Compulsion Neurosis. Some Religion Is And Some Is Not.

Tenderness Emerges From The Fact That The Two Persons, Longing, As All Individuals Do, To Overcome The Separateness And Isolation To Which We Are All Heir Because We Are Individuals, Can Participate In A Relationship That, For The Moment, Is Not Of Two Isolated Selves But A Union

Funny Relationship

The Hallmark Of Courage In Our Age Of Conformity Is The Capacity To Stand On One's Own Convictions - Not Obstinately Or Defiantly

To Say A Person Is A Coward Has No More Meaning Than To Say He Is Lazy: It Simply Tells Us That Some Vital Potentiality Is Unrealized Or Blocked.

To Believe Fully And At The Same Moment To Have Doubts Is Not At All A Contradiction: It Presupposes A Greater Respect For Truth, An Awareness That Truth Always Goes Beyond Anything That Can Be Said Or Done At Any Given Moment.

It Requires Greater Courage To Preserve Inner Freedom, To Move On In One's Inward Journey Into New Realms, Than To Stand Defiantly For Outer Freedom. It Is Often Easier To Play The Martyr, As It Is To Be Rash In Battle.

It Is Amazing How Many Hints And Guides And Intuitions For Living Come To The Sensitive Person Who Has Ears To Hear What His Body Is Saying.

Sensitive Person

Unconscious Insights Or Answers To Problems That Come In Reverie Do Not Come Hit Or Miss... They Pertain To Those Areas In Which The Person Consciously Has Worked Laboriously And With Dedication.

Consciousness Is The Awareness That Emerges Out Of The Dialectical Tension Between Possibilities And Limitations.

It Is Highly Significant And Indeed Almost A Rule, That Moral Courage Has Its Source In Such Identification Through One's Own Sensitivity With Suffering Of One's Fellow Human Beings." (p. 16-17)

Many People Feel They Are Powerless To Do Anything Effective With Their Lives. It Takes Courage To Break Out Of The Settled Mold, But Most Find Conformity More Comfortable. This Is Why The Opposite Of Courage In Our Society Is Not Cowardice, It's Conformity.

Creativity Is The Process Of Bringing Something New Into Being.

When We Are Dealing With Human Beings, No Truth Has Reality By Itself; It Is Always Dependent Upon The Reality Of The Immediate Relationship.

Our Powerful Hunger For Myth Is A Hunger For Community. The Person Without A Myth Is A Person Without A Home...to Be A Member Of One's Community Is To Share In Its Myths.

Joy, Rather Than Happiness, Is The Goal Of Life, For Joy Is The Emotion Which Accompanies Our Fulfilling Our Natures As Human Beings. It Is Based On The Experience Of One's Identity As A Being Of Worth And Dignity.

The Schizoid Man Is The Natural Product Of The Technological Man. It Is One Way To Live And Is Increasingly Utilized And It May Explode Into Violence.

Creativity Is The Encounter Of The Intensively Conscious Human Being With His World.

When You Are Completely Absorbed Or Caught Up In Something, You Become Oblivious To Things Around You, Or To The Passage Of Time. It Is This Absorption In What You Are Doing That Frees Your Unconscious And Releases Your Creative Imagination.

Courage Is Required Not Only In A Person's Occasional Crucial Decision For His Own Freedom, But In The Little Hour-to-hour Decisions Which Place The Bricks In The Structure Of His Building Of Himself Into A Person Who Acts With Freedom And Responsibility.

Our Thesis Is That Symbols And Myths Are An Expression Of Man's Unique Self-consciousness, His Capacity To Transcend The Immediate Concrete Situation And See His Life In Terms Of 'the Possible,' And That This Capacity Is One Aspect Of His Experiencing Himself As A Being Having A World.

When I Fall In Love, I Feel More Valuable And I Treat Myself With More Care. We Have All Observed The Hesitant Adolescent, Uncertain Of Himself, Who, When He Or She Falls In Love, Suddenly Walks With A Certain Inner Assuredness And Confidence, A Mien Which Seems To Say, "you Are Looking At Somebody Now." For This Inner Sense Of Worth That Comes With Being In Love Does Not Seem To Depend Essentially On Whether The Love Is Returned Or Not.

Falling In Love

Reason Works Better When Emotions Are Present; The Person Sees Sharper And More Accurately When His Emotions Are Engaged.

A Myth Is A Way Of Making Sense In A Senseless World. Myths Are Narrative Patterns That Give Significance To Our Existence. Whether The Meaning Of Existence Is Only What We Put Into Life By Our Own Individual Fortitude, As Sartre Would Hold, Or Whether There Is A Meaning We Need To Discover, As Kierkegaard Would State, The Result Is The Same: Myths Are Our Way Of Finding This Meaning And Significance.

It Requires Greater Courage To Preserve Inner Freedom, To Move On In One's Inward Journey Into New Realms, Than To Stand Defiantly For Outer Freedom. It Is Often Easier To Play The Martyr, As It Is To Be Rash In Battle. Strange As It Sounds, Steady, Patient Growth In Freedom Is Probably The Most Difficult Task Of All, Requiring The Greatest Courage. Thus If The Term "hero" Is Used In This Discussion At All, It Must Refer Not To The Special Acts Of Outstanding Persons, But To The Heroic Element Potentially In Every Man.

Creativity Is Neither The Product Of Neurosis Nor Simple Talent, But An Intense Courageous Encounter With The Gods.

The Constructive Schizoid Person Stands Against The Spiritual Emptiness Of Encroaching Technology And Does Not Let Himself Be Emptied By It. He Lives And Works With The Machine Without Becoming A Machine. He Finds It Necessary To Remain Detached Enough To Get Meaning From The Experience, But In Doing So, To Protect His Own Inner Life From Impoverishment.

They Pursue Meaninglessness Until They Can Force It To Mean.

There Can Be No Stronger Proof Of The Impoverishment Of Our Contemporary Culture Than The Popular - Though Profoundly Mistaken - Definition Of Myth As Falsehood.

Creative People... Are Distinguished By The Fact That They Can Live With Anxiety, Even Though A High Price May Be Paid In Terms Of Insecurity, Sensitivity, And Defenselessness For The Gift Of 'divine Madness,' To Borrow The Term Used By The Classical Greeks.

Intimacy Requires Courage Because Risk Is Inescapable. We Cannot Know At The Outset How The Relationship Will Affect Us.

Self Actualization

A Dynamic Struggle Goes On Within A Person Between What He Or She Consciously Thinks On The One Hand And, On The Other, Some Insight, Some Perspective That Is Struggling To Be Born.

Courage Is The Basic Virtue For Everyone So Long As He Continues To Grow, To Move Ahead.

The Creative Act Arises Out Of The Struggle Of Human Beings With And Against That Which Limits Them.

Finding The Center Of Strenghth Within Ourselves Is In The Long Run Best Contribution We Can Do To Our Fellow Man

Joy Is The Zest That You Get Out Of Using Your Talents, Your Understanding, The Totality Of Your Being, For Great Aims...that's The Kind Of Feeling That Goes With Creativity. That's Why I Say The Courage To Create. Creation Does Not Come Out Of Simply What You're Born With. That Must Be United With Your Courage, Both Of Which Cause Anxiety, But Also Great Joy.

Using Your Talents

Communication Leads To Community, That Is, To Understanding, Intimacy And Mutual Valuing.

Hate Is Not The Opposite Of Love; Apathy Is.

It Is Dangerous To Know, But It Is More Dangerous Not To Know.

There Is Nobody Who Totally Lacks The Courage To Change.

Courage To Change

The Acorn Becomes An Oak By Means Of Automatic Growth; No Commitment Is Necessary. The Kitten Similarly Becomes A Cat On The Basis Of Instinct. Nature And Being Are Identical In Creatures Like Them. But A Man Or Woman Becomes Fully Human Only By His Or Her Choices And His Or Her Commitment To Them. People Attain Worth And Dignity By The Multitude Of Decisions They Make From Day By Day. These Decisions Require Courage.

To Love Means To Open Ourselves To The Negative As Well As The Positive - To Grief, Sorrow, And Disappointment As Well As To Joy, Fulfillment, And An Intensity Of Consciousness We Did Not Know Was Possible Before

Does Not The Possibility Or The Power To Do Something About The Situation At Hand Confer On One The Responsibility To Do It?

Inner Sense Of Worth That Comes With Being In Love Does Not Seem To Depend Essentially On Whether The Love Is Returned Or Not.

In Any Age Courage Is The Simple Virtue Needed For A Human Being To Traverse The Rocky Road From Infancy To Maturity Of Personality. But In An Age Of Anxiety, An Age Of Herd Morality And Personal Isolation, Courage Is A Sine Qua Non. In Periods When The Mores Of The Society Were More Consistent Guides, The Individual Was More Firmly Cushioned In His Crises Of Development; But In Times Of Transition Like Ours, The Individual Is Thrown On His Own At An Earlier Age And For A Longer Period.

Freedom Does Not Come Automatically; It Is Achieved. And It Is Not Gained In A Single Bound; It Must Be Achieved Each Day.

By Whatever Name One Calls It, Genuine Creativity Is Characterized By An Intensity Of Awareness, A Heightened Consciousness.

Mass Communication--wonder As It May Be Technologically And Something To Be Appreciated And Valued--presents Us Wit A Serious Daner, The Danger Of Conformism, Due To The Fact That We All View The Same Things At The Same Time In All The Cities Of The Country. (p. 73)

Competitive Individualism Militates Against The Experience Of Community, And That Lack Of Community Is A Centrally Important Factor In Contemporaneous Anxiety.

This Personal Freedom To Think And Feel And Speak Authentically And To Be Conscious Of So Doing Is The Quality That Distinguishes Us As Human.

Recall How Often In Human History The Saint And The Rebel Have Be The Same Person. (p. 35)

Man Is The "ethical Animal" Ethical In Potentiality Even If, Unfortunately, Not In Actuality. His Capacity For Ethical Judgment Like Freedom, Reason And The Other Unique Characteristics Of The Human Being Is Based Upon His Consciousness Of Himself.

Insight Comes At A Moment Of Transition Between Work And Relaxation.

Dogmatism Of All Kinds--scientific, Economic, Moral, As Well As Political--are Threatened By The Creative Freedom Of The Artist. This Is Necessarily And Inevitably So. We Cannot Escape Our Anxiety Over The Fact That The Artists Together With Creative Persons Of All Sorts, Are The Possible Destroyer Of Our Nicely Ordered Systems. (p. 76)

One Of The Few Blessings Of Living In An Age Of Anxiety Is That We Are Forced To Become Aware Of Ourselves.

Our Age Is One Of Transition, In Which The Normal Channels For Utilizing The Daimonic Are Denied; And Such Ages Tend To Be Times When The Daimonic Is Expressed In Its Most Destructive Form.

People Only Change When It Becomes Too Dangerous To Stay The Way They Are.

One Longs For The Presence Of A Leader Like Lincoln, Who Openly Admitted His Doubts And As Openly Preserved His Commitment.

People Attain Worth And Dignity By The Multitude Of Decisions They Make From Day To Day.

Vanity And Narcissism — The Compulsive Need To Be Admired And Praised — Undermine One's Courage, For One Then Fights On Someone Else's Conviction Rather Than One's Own.

Memory Is Not Just The Imprint Of The Past Time Upon Us; It Is The Keeper Of What Is Meaningful For Our Deepest Hopes And Fears.

Poets Often Have A Conscious Awareness That They Are Struggling With The Daimonic, And That The Issue Is Their Working Something Through From The Depths Which Push The Self To A New Plane.

A Myth Is A Way Of Making Sense In A Senseless World. Myths Are Narrative Patterns That Give Significance To Our Existence.

Anxiety Is An Even Better Teacher Than Reality, For One Can Temporarily Evade Reality By Avoiding The Distasteful Situation; But Anxiety Is A Source Of Education Always Present Because One Carries It Within.

Creativity Occurs In An Act Of Encounter And Is To Be Understood With This Encounter As Its Center.

The Individual Human Is Still The Creature Who Can Wonder, Who Can Be Enchanted By A Sonata, Who Can Place Symbols Together To Make Poetry To Gladden Our Heart, Who Can View A Sunrise With A Sense Of Majesty And Awe.

The Danger Always Exists That Our Technology Will Serve As A Buffer Between Us And Nature, A Block Between Us And The Deeper Dimensions Of Our Own Experience.

I Learned That Healing And Cure Are Active Processes In Which I Myself Needed To Participate.

It Is Infinitely Safer To Know That The Man At The Top Has His Doubts, As You And I Have Ours, Yet Has The Courage To Move Ahead In Spite Of These Doubts.

The Receptivity Of The Artist Must Never Be Confused With Passivity. Receptivity Is The Artist's Holding Him Or Herself Alive And Open To Hear What Being May Speak.

Every Human Being Must Have A Point At Which He Stands Against The Culture, Where He Says, This Is Me And The Damned World Can Go To Hell.

If You Do Not Express Your Own Original Ideas, If You Do Not Listen To Your Own Being, You Will Have Betrayed Yourself.

Whereas Moral Courage Is The Righting Of Wrongs, Creative Courage, In Contrast, Is The Discovering Of New Forms, New Symbols, New Patterns On Which A New Society Can Be Built.

One Central Need In Life Is To Fulfill Its Own Potential.

Fortunately, However, We No Longer Have To Argue That Self -love Is Not Only Necessary And Good But That It Also Is A Prerequisite For Loving Others.

People In Your Life

Terrorism And The Whole Drug Scene Are Vivid Examples Of The Fact That What Persons Abhor Most Of All In Life Is The Possibility That They Will Not Matter.

What If Imagination And Art Are Not Frosting At All, But The Fountainhead Of Human Experience?

Those We Call Saints Rebelled Against An Outmoded And Inadequate Form Of God On The Basis Of Their New Insights Into Divinity.

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