I don't go to Goodwill very often, but when I do, I mainly check out two areas: 1. The kitchen/housewares section and 2. The book section. In the housewares, I look for neat-o baskets and trays to hold classroom work materials, and in the book section I look for, well, books. Surprising, right? Though I mostly look for books in the children's section (also for my classroom), sometimes I breeze through the "grown ups" section while I'm there as well. Rarely do I find anything I like, but as luck/fate/the universe would have it, last month I stumbled across a book that caught my eye for various reasons. First, it looked old. Second, it had an interesting graphic on the cover. Third, and mostly, I found the title intriguing. It's called "On Becoming a Person: A distinguished psychologist's guide to personal growth and creativity" by Carl R. Rogers. I've been curious about psychology for a fair amount of my life, though I never studied it formally beyond the "C" I earned in Psych 101 in college. I'm sure we must have learned about this dude during that class, however Carl Rogers was not a name I was familiar with. Eager to learn about what it was like to become a person in the 50s, I would have surely paid the full 1961 publication cover price of $7.95 to procure this book. Thanks to a random stranger, or a surviving relative of said stranger, however, I was able to add it to my collection for the bargain price of $1.99.
The first interesting thing I read relates to Mr....no, wait...that's the PBS sneaker changing sweater wearing fella....I mean Dr. Rogers' motivation for writing the book. Among his list of reasons, Rogers said he wrote the book because he felt humanity was living in a desperate time regarding tension in human relationships. He wrote, "Man's awesome scientific advances...seem most likely to lead to the total destruction of our world unless we can make great advances in understanding and dealing with interpersonal and inter-group tensions." This fascinates me because I bet that if the same quote were written in any decade, either prior to or since the 50s, it would still ring true. Human nature seems to rely on the projected perception that we're all doomed unless we do something about it right now. Somehow, this is always the most critical time in our lives. That's a-whole-nother topic for a-whole-nother day.
I must admit I stopped reading this book because it became tedious and dry, but before I put it down indefinitely, I as able to extract these enlightening points:
1. Conflict arises through contradiction. At any given time, we have an existing sense of self. Then, we experience feelings and events that are inconsistent with the self we think we know and internal conflict arises. Tension is created as we begin to think in "How can I...when I?" statements. For example "How can I feel bitter towards my children when I am supposed to be a good mom?"
2. External elements play a major role in our perception of self. The self we have come to know thus far is a conceptual creation based on a variety of external factors including gender, birth order, upbringing, religious beliefs, geographical location, parental expectations, societal norms, education, etc. No external elements are innate.
3. Resistance equals despair. The rejection of experiences that do not fit in with our existing sense of self leads to increased conflict and negative emotion. If this emotion is not processed, we gradually move towards the darkness of despair. Alternatively, when we accept our experiences in all their variety and contradiction, we begin to create ourselves authentically in a realm beyond conceptual filters. Simply put, we begin to unmask the self we "should be" and realize the self that we are.
4. Openness to experience is the key to personal growth and creativity. This point is twofold. First, individuals must allow themselves to accept all feelings and experiences naturally, without resistance. Second, and more importantly, we must then accept the nature of our experiences honestly, being careful not to filter in things that are not a part of our actual experience. Rogers says, "When we are open to our experiences there is a greater and more immediate awareness of unsatisfying consequences and a quicker correction of choices which are in error."
5. People are innately positive. Rogers contends that when we are able to function fully and freely as humans through openness and acceptance, we ignite our true capacity for greatness. He writes, "We find we have an organism able to achieve a balanced, realistic, self enhancing, other-enhancing behavior as a resultant of all these elements of awareness." Basically speaking, people want to, and can be, better.
So as it turns out, becoming a person in the 50s is pretty much the same as becoming a person in modern times. Evolving, one experience at a time, Learning how to accept and embrace them all, making adjustments as we go. The difference is back then it was considered ground breaking to do it this way. Thanks Dr. Rogers for writing this book, thanks (possibly passed away) stranger for dumping it at Goodwill, and thank you universe for putting me on a path to discovering it at exactly the right time.
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