Tranquilizers, alcohol, and recreational drugs share these common features that tend to make them addictive: they reduce pain and anxiety; they sometimes create a temporary buoyancy, a temporary illusion of efficacy, power, and high self-esteem; and they tend to perpetuate just those behaviors that created the need for their use in the first place. Thus, the problem of such abuse is intimately connected to problems of self-esteem and cannot be understood outside that context.
Just as (inappropriately used) Valium is a defense value, so is an obsessive preoccupation with approval and popularity, or mindless material acquisitiveness, or role-playing the “good boy” or “good girl,” or compulsive pursuit of sexual “conquests,” or sexual asceticism and renunciation, which reflect the other side of the same madness, or selfless obedience to a leader, which is aimed at escape from the burden of identity and responsibility. These are all antianxiety devices. They are all engaged for the purpose of coping with the problem of the human need for self-esteem, but in self-destructive ways.
When we see an addict withdraw from the object of his or her particular addiction, we ask the individual to confront the question, Who am I without this particular crutch? We might ask the same of any defense values. Who am I without my popularity? Who am I without my possessions? Who am I without my leader, my movement, the cause in which I lose myself? Who am I when there is no one to tell me what to do, no one to obey or rebel against, no one to surpass or be subordinate to, no one to impress or control or manipulate or serve? Who am I, facing myself in the mirror?
This, perhaps, is the ultimate question all of us must face: Who am I, naked and alone, with only my mind and my being and with none of the external supports or trappings by which I may seek to sustain my self-concept?
One of the core meanings of enlightenment is liberation from false and spurious value attachments that blind the individual to his or her true essence. When and if I learn that ultimately I am my mind and my manner of using it—when and if I understand that ego is only the internal experience of consciousness, the ultimate center of awareness—I am free.
But for those who are trapped in a maze of false notions of self, an elaborate structure of social “roles” and “images,” and barricaded behind a network of defense values, such a concept of ego as I am propounding is almost ungraspable. At best, it is likely to be only a distant vision. But the path of our evolution is the path we follow toward the actualization of that vision.
We cannot, however, complete our discussion of the dynamics of self-esteem without considering the impact of self-esteem on the two cardinal issues of our existence: work and love.
*This series of formulations is adapted from a way of talking heavily encouraged in Gestalt therapy, which places strong emphasis on “taking responsibility.” 59
7
Self-Esteem, Work, and Love
While self-esteem touches virtually every aspect of our existence, there are two aspects to which it is related in very distinct and powerful ways: work and love. Through work and through love, we act out the level of our confidence and our sense of personal worth. The drama of our life is the external reflection of our internal vision of ourselves. The higher the level of our self-esteem, the more likely it is that we will find a work and a love through which we can express ourselves in satisfying and enriching ways. And, conversely, the lower the level of our self-esteem, the more likely it is that our experiences with work and love will be such as to cause our self-esteem to remain on an unsatisfying plane.
Let us first examine the relationship between self-esteem and productive work. By productive work I mean any purposeful activity involving mind and labor and serving the purposes of life, from digging a ditch, driving a tractor, designing a building, and operating a business to engaging in scientific research.
Earlier, when I introduced the concept of efficacy as one of the two essential elements of self-esteem, I was speaking of fundamental efficacy. We may call this metaphysical efficacy.But the concept of efficacy is also applicable to our effectiveness in specific areas of endeavor, resulting from particular knowledge and skills we have acquired. This is expressed in the domain of productive work (although not only there). I shall call this latter type particularized efficacy.
As I discussed in chapter one, a person may exhibit a degree of particularized efficacy and yet be profoundly lacking in that sense of fundamental efficacy essential to healthy self-esteem. For example, a man or woman may be skilled and confident on the job but terrified by any wider need for independent thinking in the moral, ethical, or intellectual sphere, fearing to step outside a familiar frame of reference established by the particular group to which he or she belongs. Thinking about the essentials of life is left to others. Others determine the context in which this individual operates—the moral context, the value context, the intellectual context. A highly efficient “organization man” is an example of this type.
On the other hand, a person may possess a healthy self-esteem, a profound sense of fundamental or metaphysical efficacy, but, being highly specialized in his or her interests, may lack many of the practical skills that most people take for granted, such as how to drive an automobile, cook a meal, or perform some simple task of home repair. Rather than fearing such tasks, however, he or she normally feels confident of the ability to acquire the requisite skills should the need arise. A sense of metaphysical efficacy imparts a confidence in the ability in principle to learn whatever is necessary.
Metaphysical efficacy is necessarily expressed through some form of particularized efficacy. But metaphysical efficacy is not confined, in its expression, to any particular form of activity; it is applicable to, and expressible in, every form of constructive endeavor. It would be impossible, of course, to acquire or sustain a sense of metaphysical efficacy without also acquiring some forms of particularized efficacy—in other words, without engaging in some form of productive work. We maintain our metaphysical efficacy by continuing to expand our particularized efficacy; that is the meaning of growth as a way of life.
The position I take here obviously stands in sharp contrast to that taken by contemporary writers who speak disparagingly of work and achievement, as if such values were merely a diabolical invention of capitalism. We have to wonder, for example, at the following statement of Irvin D. Yalom in Existential Psychotherapy: “The belief that life is incomplete without goal fulfillment is not so much a tragic existential fact of life as it is a Western myth, a cultural artifact.” If there is anything we know for a biological certainty, it is that life is impossible without “goal fulfillment”—impossible on every level of evolution, from the amoeba to the human being. It is neither “a tragic existential fact” nor “a Western myth,” but rather the simple nature of life—and often exhilarating. (It is particularly disappointing to encounter such a statement in a book that is, in so many ways, a brilliant accomplishment.)
Every achievement is a value in itself, but every step upward also opens to us a wider range of action and achievement and creates the need for that action and achievement. Survival demands continuing growth and creativeness. There is no final, permanent plateau.
In stressing the importance of growth and achievement to a uniquely human existence, I do not intend to imply that the meaning of life is simply work and that there are no other values of supreme importance. Love, friendship, leisure, recreation are vital elements in a fulfilled existence. But if we do not discover the necessity and joy of using our productive and creative powers, we have missed one of the highest rewards available to our species; we have deprived ourselves of one of the great, distinctively human experiences.
I have often been struck by the fact that the earliest self-generated pleasure of a person’s life is the pleasure of a sense of control. As a child learns to move his or her body, to crawl, to walk, to bang with a spoon against a table and produce a sound, to build a structure of blocks, to pronounce words, the enjoyment he or she exhibits is that of a living organism gainin
g power over its own existence. It is profoundly significant, psychologically and morally, that a child begins his or her life experiencing the sense of virtue and the sense of efficacy as a single, indivisible emotion; pride is inextricably tied to achievement. It is as if nature, at the start of life, points us in the right direction.
Whereas some of us subsequently lose this awareness, forget what a child is gifted to know, it is just this knowledge that a psychologically well-functioning human being does not lose: it remains a central motive in life. This attitude accounts for the phenomenon of the mentally active person who is young at ninety, just as the absence of this attitude accounts for the phenomenon of the mentally passive person who is old at thirty.
Many factors—such as intelligence, energy level, and available opportunities—influence the scope of a person’s productive ambition, but certainly one of the most powerful determining factors is the degree of self-esteem. On any level of intelligence or ability, one of the characteristics of high self-esteem is an eagerness for the new and the challenging, for that which will allow an individual to use his or her capacities to the fullest extent—just as a fondness for the familiar, the routine, and the unexacting coupled with a fear of the new and the difficult is a virtually unmistakable indication of low self-esteem.
I want to stress once again that productive achievement is a consequence and expression of high self-esteem, not its primary cause. A person who is brilliantly talented and successful at work but irrational and irresponsible in his or her private life may desperately want to believe that the sole criterion of virtue is productive performance, that no other sphere of action has moral or self-esteem significance. Such a person may hide behind work in order to evade feelings of shame and guilt stemming from other areas of life, so that productive accomplishment becomes, not a healthy passion, but a defense value, an avoidance strategy, a refuge from reality and from the judgment of one’s own ego. Furthermore, if a person makes the error of identifying self with his or her work, with accomplishments, success, income, or being a good family provider, economic circumstances beyond the individual’s control that lead to the failure of a business or the loss of a job may also lead to depression or acute demoralization.
Some years ago, lecturing on this subject in Detroit, with members of the automobile industry in the audience, I made the following observation: “Right now Washington is trying to decide whether or not to bail out Chrysler. Never mind for the moment whether or not you think that’s an appropriate government function; I don’t think it is, but that’s irrelevant. The point is, if you work for Chrysler and your self-esteem is tied to being a high achiever in that company, or to earning a good income this year, then what that means practically is that you are willing for some persons in Washington literally to hold your soul in their hands, to have total control over your sense of worth. Does that idea offend you? I hope so. It offends me.”
It is bad enough, during economic hard times, to have to worry about money and our family’s welfare and future, but it is still worse if we allow our self-esteem to become undermined in the process—by telling ourselves, in effect, that our efficacy and worth are a function of our earnings.
On occasion I have had the opportunity to counsel older men and women who found themselves unemployed, passed over in favor of people a good deal younger who were in no way better equipped, or even as well equipped, for the particular job. We are living during a time when there tends to be a strong prejudice in favor of youth against age. I have also worked with highly talented young people who suffered from the reverse form of the same prejudice, a discrimination against youth in favor of age—where, again, objective competence and ability were not the standard. In such circumstances, there is tragically often the sense of the loss of personal effectiveness. Such a feeling is a hairline away from the sense of diminished self-esteem—and often turns into a feeling of diminished self-esteem. It takes an unusual kind of person to avoid falling into the trap of this error: it takes a person who is already well centered within him- or herself and who understands that some of the forces operating are beyond personal control and that, strictly speaking, these do not have (or should not have) significance for self-esteem at all.
Whenever we are weighing whether or not a matter bears on our self-esteem (or should bear on our self-esteem), the question to ask is, Is this issue within my direct, volitional control? Or is it at least linked, by a direct line of causality, to matters within my volitional control?
If we are willing to take responsibility for that which is within our power, I think that frees us to see clearly that which is not, and to understand, therefore, the limits of our accountability. But if we too often fail to take such responsibility and feel vaguely guilty over our avoidance, the paradox is that in our confusion we often end up blaming ourselves for events beyond our control. Further, one of the most common forms of evading appropriate responsibility is to clutter up one’s thinking with notions of utterly inappropriate and absurd responsibility—like the person who is unwilling to assume responsibility for his or her own existence but who professes to feel “responsible for the whole world.”
We can never judge positive self-esteem on the basis of a single trait or characteristic, taken out of context. Just as we cannot deduce it simply on the basis of an erect, relaxed, well-balanced posture, so we cannot deduce it simply on the basis of a high level of ambition—although both can be expressions of good self-esteem, and often are.
Many an individual, feeling he or she is not “enough,” may be driven to more and more demanding levels of performance and accomplishment, in order to “prove” him- or herself—and if the person has intelligence and energy, he or she may succeed in achieving a great deal. What this individual will not achieve, of course, is high self-esteem.
One of the most common errors made by people of poor self-esteem about people of high self-esteem is the assumption that the latter always feel cheerful, confident, and secure, never feel anxious or demoralized, never know anguish or despair, always are certain about what they are doing. Not all anxiety is self-esteem anxiety, and not all despair pertains to doubt of personal worth. To possess healthy self-esteem is not to be immune to the vicissitudes of life or to the pain of struggle.
One of the forms of psychological heroism is the willingness to tolerate anxiety and uncertainty in the pursuit of our values—whether those values be work goals, the love of another human being, the raising of a family, or personal growth.
To stay with the arena of productive work, for example, an artist, a scientist, or an industrialist of high self-esteem may set extraordinarily difficult goals that may generate times of anxiety, doubt about choices made, uncertainty about the possibility of success, and periods of depression. This person is likely to feel, “If this, sometimes, is the price I have to pay for the attainment of my goals, I am willing to pay it”—an attitude that a person of lower self-esteem would not be likely to adopt.
The person of high self-esteem may even revel in the struggle, in spite of all the painful feelings that sometimes occur; people of high self-esteem tend to preserve a spiritual point that remains untouched, even by their own suffering.
To accept the process of struggle as part of life, to accept all of it, even the darkest moments of anguish (which is motivation by love rather than motivation by fear, motivation by confidence rather than motivation by insecurity)—that is one of the most important attitudes that differentiates individuals with high self-esteem from individuals with low self-esteem. The wish to avoid fear and pain is not the motive that drives the lives of highly evolved men and women. Rather it is the life-force within them thrusting toward its unique form of expression—the actualization of personal values.
Like work, love too can be sought, not as an expression of self-esteem and of esteem for another, but rather as a means of raising a self-esteem that is painfully low. The quest to find someone who will love me and thereby make me love myself does not succeed. Nonethele
ss, millions attempt it every day. When the quest fails, we often move on to another relationship, which also fails, and then perhaps we move on to another relationship—or else we give up and decide that “there’s no such thing as love.”
I am reminded of a famous actress-singer I once saw being interviewed on television. The interviewer commented on the astonishing number of projects and engagements in which she had been involved during the past several years. “I like to keep busy,” she smiled. The interviewer sighed gravely, “I’m the same way—always running from one project to another, always juggling twelve balls in the air. Why do we do it?” Her smile vanished, and she said slowly, thoughtfully, a little sadly, “For myself … I’m afraid that if I ever stop running, if I ever stop doing things all the time, if I ever get off the treadmill and allow myself to look inside … I’ll find out there’s nothing there.” Nodding in silent, eloquent understanding, the interviewer responded, “Yeah.” What made the interview significant was the subject’s willingness to articulate explicitly what millions feel but do not name.
Just as many people run from one work project to another, so they may run from one relationship to another, for the same purpose: dread of finding out that if they ever stop and look inside, they may discover “there’s nothing there.”
* * *
Love is our emotional response to that which we value highly. It is the experience of joy in the existence of the loved object, joy in proximity, and joy in interaction or involvement. To love is to delight in the being whom one loves, to experience pleasure in that being’s presence, to find gratification or fulfillment in contact with that being. We experience the loved person as a source of fulfillment for profoundly important needs.
To provide a formal definition, I would say that love represents a disposition to experience the loved being as the embodiment of profoundly important personal values—and, as a consequence, a real or potential source of joy. The full reasons for this definition are offered in The Psychology of Romantic Love. Here I will simply say that while I believe this definition names the essence of love, it is generally recognized that “love” can be confused with loneliness, neediness, transitory physical attraction, fantasy, wish fulfillment, affection, gratitude, and even the comradeship of mutual contempt.
Honoring the Self Page 11
