The Frustration of Potentiality

“The frustration of potentiality is the root of neurosis.  The implications of this view are large.  Individuals are not a bundle of repressions but…of possibilities, and the key to therapy lies in reactivating the process of growth.”

Source:  “The Psychology of Personal Growth,” by Ira Progoff, Ph.D., Atlantic Monthly, July 1961, p. 103.

Early in adulthood, I discovered that I hated working for a living. Friends and counselors have suggested that I never found the right jobs, work that would stimulate my talents rather than suppress them. Chronic job misplacement has kept me on the treadmill of mediocrity, if not outright neurosis (which is now called "dysfunction".)

Ironically, I've never had difficulty getting hired, and I've worked in more "career fields" than most people would care to try. I've never made a major mistake, but I've never excelled, either. I've quit nearly all of my jobs, been fired only twice-- once for attitude and once for slacking. Most of my bosses did not want to lose me. I have never regretted leaving a job, and have never gone back to say hello or discover what had happened after my departure.

Currently I am working at what I hope is my last job of necessity. I've been at it for eight long years. I have four more to endure before retirement. I don't dislike the job; it's not a bad job, and the pay is adequate. I offer no complaints about it-- I simply don't want to do it.

What I want to do is what I've always done in my "spare time" -- read, write, and create art. Those are the activities that bring out my talents, nourish my soul, and energize my spirit. Those are the activities in which I have always excelled, even on an objective level. Other people have recognized my accomplishments in art, music and writing, since childhood. I look forward to retirement, in which I plan to be free of the suffocating need to earn money for my support.

In spite that I have been able to organize and lead workshops for Progoff's Intensive Journal, I have not done so. I don't have the energy or the focus. Other workshop leaders can maintain their "day jobs" and do Progoff workshops periodically. I cannot, because I am working at a job that enervates me rather than energizes me.

The process of growth, for me, begins at quitting time, expands on days off, explodes exponentially during periods of unemployment, and will resume its trajectory the day I retire at the age of sixty-six or sooner if I can make that happen. I haven't given up on leading workshops, but I won't do it until I can devote myself to it with the attention it deserves.