Myths of Life – Identifying and Removing the Myth of Limitation

A friend of mine recently introduced her new boyfriend to her family.  The meeting went well and upon leaving her mother said ‘I am so glad to see you happy now – you deserve someone nice’.  Her reply was ‘But I am happy already – how come you are saying ‘it’s nice to see me happy now”.  Didn’t you experience me as happy before?’  The mother admonished her daughter for being too sensitive, saying ‘you know what I mean – I just want you to be happy’.

This conversation highlights some very powerful myths about romantic love.  Presumably (if I dare do this in a discussion on myths), some deeply held beliefs exist in the mother’s statement e.g. it is preferable to be in a committed relationship, a woman (or person) is better off not being single, it is good to ‘end up’ with someone after being alone etc.  These are all deeply held social and cultural myths of a preferable state of being.  It objectifies individuals (in this case my friend)  and potentially influences partners ‘in – relationship’ to relate  through a stereotypical lens of their perceptions of what  a ‘committed relationship is’.   It ignores our phenomenal state of being and co-construction with the ‘other’.

How can existential philosophy be of relevance in how you choose to live your life?  What are oyur choices and how can you live with the anxeity of challenging the status quo or questioning the rightness of your decisions?  You have to live in the social world, consider others and the rules that enable you to realise our choices.  The issue is not one of rejecting all that is expected of you – the issue that you DO have a chocie.  It’s about challenging the unquestioned assumptions, expanding your choices and living with the anxiety that meaningful living entails.

The validity of our choices is often questioned when we become disillusioned with our lives, despite achieving many of the things we dreamed of.  We long to have it all but find it increasingly difficult to juggle  jobs, children, homes and sanity! We believe that if only a balance could be struck between the different areas of our lives, we could relax.  Invariably, this balance is never achieved and we become observers in our own lives, wishing for the day when it would all improve.

Bombarded with choices about how to live and be happy, what do we really want to do with our lives? Society’s myths often result in us choosing from a limited array of available options – it is assumed that ‘having it all but in balance’ is the way forward.  Maybe not.  Maybe the parts that make up the balance have never been questioned.  Maybe we have never taken time out of our busy schedules to examine the full range of options facing us.  We choose from a narrow range of choices on offer and never stop to thnk ‘outside the square’ and create the life we want.

As a psychotherapist, I passionately believe you are each the best judge of what is right for you.  By examining the role of Myths in your lives, you can expand our options, reconnet with your choices and judge the rightness of them.  Existential philosophy offers an opportunity to develop a vision of what your ideal life would be like, a yardstick against which you choose – the question, ‘Does this contribute to realising my vision?’ will keep you on track.

However, accepting anxiety is an inevitable part of committing to our choices is an existential realtiy.  Rollo May (1975:21) says, ‘Commitment is the healthiest when it is not without doubt, but in spite of doubt.  To believe fully and at the same time to have doubts is not at all a contradiction: it presupposes a greater respect for the truth, an awareness that truth always goes beyond anything that can be said or done at any given moment’.

How to change things after committing to a course of action

Are you denying your freedom when you say you can’t change certain things in your life once you have committed to them?

Example

Imagine a person who has signed up to complete a four-year degree course. After two years, he realises that he is neither enjoying the subject material or potential ways in which it could be used in later employment. He finds himself in a dilemma. He discusses this with friends and academics who highlight the costs of leaving the programme in terms of time, money and opportunity. He then argues with himself over what he would gain if only he completed the programme, even if against his better judgement. He tries to explain this to his parents who criticise him for not honouring his commitments and wasting the money they contributed to his studies. How does this person make a decision without an objective rightness of what is best for him?

When we consider changing things which have previously committed to, anxiety arises as we ponder ways in which we can be true to our desires and yet not self-critical or overwhelmed with concerns over lost opportunities. In this, we are subject to the Commitment Myth – the unquestioned assumption that it is impossible to change certain things in our lives once we have committed to them.

In the above and similar examples, the person involved is often caught in the grip of intolerable anxiety as they face the decision of either changing in line with some internal sense of rightness or continuing with the status quo. Some examples might appear more difficult and subject to greater social pressures. What about the person who wants to leave their partner and children or the person who promised their aged parent they would look after them for the rest of their lives?

Embracing our freedom to create ourselves as we might want gives rise to enormous anxiety since we alone must take responsibility for our choices and not point to others or external social pressures for not doing so. Martin Heidegger talks about the ‘Call of Conscience’ which arises when we deny our freedom to choose, live inauthentically and are subject to existential guilt.

Self-Reflection Exercise

Think of an example from your own life when you were faced with the decision to make changes to something which you had previously committed to. Try to pinpoint the sources of the anxiety and how you overcame the dilemma.