we know well enough that we are equipped
with an innate drive for physical growth
that the human animal is geared to keep
developing towards its outward mature
form adding muscle and bone and fatty
tissue in a spontaneous process of
development that begins in our earliest
days in the womb and ends around our
16th year what is less obvious is that
we are marked by an equally innate
equally powerful although here lifelong
drive towards emotional growth without
anything mystical being meant by this
unless we are impeded by internal or
external obstacles we are set on an
inner lockable path towards emotional
development an obvious conceptual
difference between the two drives is
that we can know easily enough what it
means to be fully grown physically but
it’s rather harder to pin down what
equivalent emotional maturity might look
like we can hazard a two-fold answer our
emotional drive is made up of two
strands the first is a will towards ever
greater and deeper connection the second
comprises a will towards ever greater
and deeper self-expression to consider
connection first we are marked by an
intense wish to move away from
loneliness shame and isolation and to
find opportunities for understanding
sincerity and communion we long to share
with friends lovers and new
acquaintances an authentic picture of
what it means to be us and at the same
time to enter deeply into their feelings
and experiences what we call love is
merely a subsection of the drive to
connect which extends across a range of
activities and types of relationship
stretching to encompass the body and our
desire for physical intimacy touch and
sexual play we can count ourselves as
emotionally healthy in large measure
according to what degree of connection
we have in our lives
by the drive to self-expression we mean
the desire to fathom bring into focus
and externalize our ideas and creative
and intellectual capacities a drive that
manifests itself particularly around our
work and our aesthetic activities we
seek to gain an ever greater
understanding of the contents of our
minds especially of our values our
pleasures and our way of seeing the
world and to be able to give these a
kind of expression that makes them
public comprehensible and beneficial to
others we will feel that we’ve had a
rich life whenever we’ve been able to
give a voice in shape to some of the
many perceptions that cause through us
and in some way however modestly left a
fruitful imprint on the world these two
aspects of the drive for emotional
growth help us to get a handle on some
of our most acute moments of unhappiness
it’s because of the primordial
importance of the drive to connect that
it hurts so much when a friendship is
broken off when an established
relationship starts to lack physical
contact or when we can’t find anyone we
see eye to eye with in a new city and
it’s because of how powerful the drive
to self-expression is that we suffer so
much when our studies fail to engage our
minds when a job ceases to reflect our
interests or when on a Sunday evening we
feel in a confused way that our talents
are going to waste just as the same
drive can explain the intensity of the
envy we’ll feel when we hear of a
friend’s success in an area that we
aspire to calling this aspect of human
nature a drive and ik waiting it with
that towards physical maturity
emphasizes it’s essentially
non-negotiable nature and hence its
power over us it is as misguided painful
and nonsensical to try to stop someone
growing emotionally as it is to bind
their feet the drive takes precedence
over all manner of more convenient
options for longing for respectability
or money or stability it won’t leave us
alone until it’s been heard it might
make us leave a marriage that would from
many perspectives
have been so much easier to remain in or
to throw in a job that was hugely
convenient financially in order to take
up another that more properly answers
the call of our deep selves if the drive
to emotional growth continues to be
unattended and perhaps even unknown to
us it can short-circuit our whole lives
in a bid to be heard fed up with waiting
it may simply throw us into a paralyzing
depression or lock us into a state of
overwhelming anxiety by breaking us in
these ways the frustrated drive is
trying to be interpreted and
accommodated what it lacks an eloquence
and focus it makes up for in persistence
and strength a breakdown is a roundabout
attempt to create opportunities for a
breakthrough that is a new stage of
emotional growth by understanding more
clearly how basic and important the
drive to emotional growth can be we may
come to better recognize the symptoms of
its frustrations and the logic of our
longings and at points when we upset the
otherwise steady course of our lives in
its name we can be ready to explain to
ourselves and those who care for us what
might be behind our puzzling behavior
we haven’t forever lost our minds we
recognize the role of respectability and
status we would love to be less
difficult and demanding it’s just that
we have to honor another even more vital
side to our nature we are under an inner
imperative to continue on our path
to learn more about self-knowledge
follow the link on your screen now to
help you better understand yourself if
you enjoyed our film please subscribe to
our channel and click the bell icon to turn on notifications
with an innate drive for physical growth
that the human animal is geared to keep
developing towards its outward mature
form adding muscle and bone and fatty
tissue in a spontaneous process of
development that begins in our earliest
days in the womb and ends around our
16th year what is less obvious is that
we are marked by an equally innate
equally powerful although here lifelong
drive towards emotional growth without
anything mystical being meant by this
unless we are impeded by internal or
external obstacles we are set on an
inner lockable path towards emotional
development an obvious conceptual
difference between the two drives is
that we can know easily enough what it
means to be fully grown physically but
it’s rather harder to pin down what
equivalent emotional maturity might look
like we can hazard a two-fold answer our
emotional drive is made up of two
strands the first is a will towards ever
greater and deeper connection the second
comprises a will towards ever greater
and deeper self-expression to consider
connection first we are marked by an
intense wish to move away from
loneliness shame and isolation and to
find opportunities for understanding
sincerity and communion we long to share
with friends lovers and new
acquaintances an authentic picture of
what it means to be us and at the same
time to enter deeply into their feelings
and experiences what we call love is
merely a subsection of the drive to
connect which extends across a range of
activities and types of relationship
stretching to encompass the body and our
desire for physical intimacy touch and
sexual play we can count ourselves as
emotionally healthy in large measure
according to what degree of connection
we have in our lives
by the drive to self-expression we mean
the desire to fathom bring into focus
and externalize our ideas and creative
and intellectual capacities a drive that
manifests itself particularly around our
work and our aesthetic activities we
seek to gain an ever greater
understanding of the contents of our
minds especially of our values our
pleasures and our way of seeing the
world and to be able to give these a
kind of expression that makes them
public comprehensible and beneficial to
others we will feel that we’ve had a
rich life whenever we’ve been able to
give a voice in shape to some of the
many perceptions that cause through us
and in some way however modestly left a
fruitful imprint on the world these two
aspects of the drive for emotional
growth help us to get a handle on some
of our most acute moments of unhappiness
it’s because of the primordial
importance of the drive to connect that
it hurts so much when a friendship is
broken off when an established
relationship starts to lack physical
contact or when we can’t find anyone we
see eye to eye with in a new city and
it’s because of how powerful the drive
to self-expression is that we suffer so
much when our studies fail to engage our
minds when a job ceases to reflect our
interests or when on a Sunday evening we
feel in a confused way that our talents
are going to waste just as the same
drive can explain the intensity of the
envy we’ll feel when we hear of a
friend’s success in an area that we
aspire to calling this aspect of human
nature a drive and ik waiting it with
that towards physical maturity
emphasizes it’s essentially
non-negotiable nature and hence its
power over us it is as misguided painful
and nonsensical to try to stop someone
growing emotionally as it is to bind
their feet the drive takes precedence
over all manner of more convenient
options for longing for respectability
or money or stability it won’t leave us
alone until it’s been heard it might
make us leave a marriage that would from
many perspectives
have been so much easier to remain in or
to throw in a job that was hugely
convenient financially in order to take
up another that more properly answers
the call of our deep selves if the drive
to emotional growth continues to be
unattended and perhaps even unknown to
us it can short-circuit our whole lives
in a bid to be heard fed up with waiting
it may simply throw us into a paralyzing
depression or lock us into a state of
overwhelming anxiety by breaking us in
these ways the frustrated drive is
trying to be interpreted and
accommodated what it lacks an eloquence
and focus it makes up for in persistence
and strength a breakdown is a roundabout
attempt to create opportunities for a
breakthrough that is a new stage of
emotional growth by understanding more
clearly how basic and important the
drive to emotional growth can be we may
come to better recognize the symptoms of
its frustrations and the logic of our
longings and at points when we upset the
otherwise steady course of our lives in
its name we can be ready to explain to
ourselves and those who care for us what
might be behind our puzzling behavior
we haven’t forever lost our minds we
recognize the role of respectability and
status we would love to be less
difficult and demanding it’s just that
we have to honor another even more vital
side to our nature we are under an inner
imperative to continue on our path
to learn more about self-knowledge
follow the link on your screen now to
help you better understand yourself if
you enjoyed our film please subscribe to
our channel and click the bell icon to turn on notifications
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