"The important elements of personality growth
are probably the achievement of enlightened self-interest, self-direction,
tolerance, acceptance of ambiguity and uncertainty, flexibility, acceptance of
reality, commitment, risk-taking, and self-acceptance.
People who are well-adjusted to themselves and
to the social group with which they live are primarily devoted to being happy,
gaining satisfaction, and avoiding truly noxious, painful, or depriving
circumstances. At the same time, they are also devoted to seeing that
their fellow humans also survive and are reasonably happy. While they are
most interested in their own life and pleasure, they realize the importance of
not needlessly stepping on others toes and unduly restricting their living
space. Consequently, they try to be non-harming to practically everyone,
and select a relatively few individuals (because their time is limited) to
actively befriend and care for. They do not dishonestly pretend to be
purely altruistic; but are authentically and realistically self-interested
and socially interested, and therefore impose certain social restrictions on
themselves.
People who have a mature and growing
personality assume responsibility for their own thinking and living. They
are able to work independently at most of their problems, and while at times
wanting or preferring the cooperation and help of others, do not
need their support to create an inner sense of worthiness.
Emotionally stable and growing people are
highly tolerant of the desires and behaviors of other human beings, even though
these may differ significantly from their own. Even when others behave in
a manner they consider to be mistaken or unethical, they acknowledge that
because of people's essential fallibility, others have a right to be wrong.
While disliking or abhorring some of their partners' acts , tolerant people do
not condemn them, as persons, for performing these unlikable acts. The
tend to accept the fact that all humans are remarkably error-prone, do not
unrealistically expect others to be perfect, and refrain from despising or
punishing others even when they make mistakes.
People who allow themselves room for growth
tend to accept the fact that we live in a world of probability and chance, with
no absolute certainties. They demand no surefire predictions about the
future and realize that it is not all horrible─indeed, it is in many ways
fascinating and exciting─to live in a distinctly probabilistic, variable
environment.
The opposite of intolerance and the need for
certainty is flexibility. The emotionally growing individual consequently
tends to be intellectually and emotionally labile, to be open to change, and to
view without bigotry the infinitely varied people, ideas, and things that exist
in the world. The disturbed person, on the other hand, tends to be
exceptionally narrow, rigid, and overly constrained. Personality growth,
in particular, would seem to be almost impossible to achieve if the individual
is not open and flexible, for how can growing and remaining closed to change be
compatible.
What is usually called emotional disturbance
and interference with personality growth stems largely from an unscientific,
magical way of thinking─thinking that is particularly involved with irrational,
dogmatic, and absolutist hypotheses. If people would largely follow the
scientific canons of reasoning in their personal lives, and would stop
dogmatically musturbating, awfulizing, and whining about the many kinds of
hassles and frustrations to which, as fallible humans, their are inevitably
heir, they would not only rid themselves of much of their deep-seated feelings
of anxiety, depression, guilt, and hostility, but give themselves leeway to
discover, with lack of prejudice, what they really enjoy in life and how they
can truly grow as human beings. Reason is indeed a limited faculty and may
never quite solve all the mysteries of life. But for maximum emotional
functioning, people had better be fairly flexible, open, and scientific, and be
able to apply scientific thinking not only to external people and events but
also to themselves and their interpersonal relationships.
Emotionally healthy individuals are usually
committed to some large life plan or goal─such as work, building a family, art,
science, or sports. When they have steady personality growth they tend to
be vitally absorbed in some large goal outside of themselves, whether it be in
the realm of people, things, or ideas. And they frequently have at least
one major creative interest, as well as some outstanding human involvement,
which is highly important to them and around which they structure a good portion
of their lives.
Emotionally sound people are able to take
risks: to ask themselves what they would really like to do in life, and then
endeavor to do it, even though they risk defeat or failure. They try to be
adventurous (though not necessarily foolhardy), are willing to chance almost
anything once to see how they like it, and look forward to some breaks in their
usual routines. It this connection, it is interesting to note, that even
some of the most self-actualizing and creative individuals spend so much of
their time in routine, unadventurous pursuits that it takes something drastic,
such as near death from a heart attack, to jolt them into a new sense of vital
living and a greater degree of risk-taking to savor their existence.
Above all else, emotionally healthy and sane
people are glad to be alive, and to full accept themselves just because they are
alive, because they exist, and because (as living humans) they almost invariably
have some power to enjoy themselves. If they assess or rate themselves at
all, they do so not on the basis of their extrinsic achievements or their
popularity with others, but on the basis of their own existence─on their
propensity to make an interesting, absorbing life for themselves."
- Albert Ellis,
The Albert Ellis Reader: A Guide to Well-Being Using Rational Emotive Behavior
Therapy
.
1998, pages: 69-82.
From the essay titled "Sex-Love Adventuring and
Personality Growth,' 1972. For more on his liberal views on sexual
psychology and behaviors, refer to "Sex
Without Guilt" (1956) or his many other forward thinking and very popular
books on the subject of sexuality.
How to Live a Good Life: Advice From Wise Persons
Virtue Ethics
