Remove obstacles from the path

Talking about the absurdity of existence, Kafka told a parable about the gatekeeper guarding the gates of the Law, and the villager who asked to be let in*. “Now you can’t enter,” the gatekeeper replied. “But if you are impatient, try, but know that my power is great.” And the villager sat on a bench in front of the gate year after year and waited for permission to enter. And before his death, he asks the gatekeeper: “How did it happen that for all these long years no one, except me, demanded that he be let through?” And the gatekeeper answers: “These gates were intended only for you! Now I’ll go and lock them up.” Many of us can recognize ourselves in this character, voluntarily left aside from life. Life, like the gatekeeper, never answers us: “No.” Throw open the doors of our destiny or continue to wait at the gate? The answer is ours.

Guilt

What is Kafka’s hero afraid of? What are we afraid of when we forbid ourselves to follow the chosen path? Wanting something means inevitably facing uncertainty (“Am I strong enough?”), Anxiety (“Where am I going?”), Guilt. Let us recall the theory of the Oedipus complex developed by Freud**. According to her, our first desires are forbidden, because we choose inaccessible (because of the prohibition on incest) “objects of love” – ​​father and mother. We can say that our life as a willing person begins with guilt, frustration. This first experience is so painful that some of us take a lifelong passive position and wait for some benefactor to grant them permission to live. They are waiting for a miracle.

To realize yourself, you need to respect yourself and trust yourself. Therefore, there is nothing worse than parents who raise an infantile child, under whose care he does not feel the opportunity to somehow influence the world around him – they block these qualities in him. Martin Seligman, one of the founders of positive psychology, called the results of such parenting “learned helplessness.” In such families, children grow up with the confidence that they have no power to influence their own destiny. Even personal successes and achievements cannot force them to change this opinion.

To decide to change your path means to refuse another. “But it is the need to make decisions that makes us understand that only we can change the world we ourselves have created,” explains psychotherapist Irvin Yalom, “and therefore realize that we alone are responsible for our lives” ****.

Fear of failure

One of the main obstacles to self-realization is the fear of failure, psychoanalyst Jacques Arènes is sure: “We feel that if we fail, we will finally lose respect for ourselves.” Usually this fear is expressed in negative judgments: “I’m not smart enough for this” – or far-fetched excuses for doing nothing: “It’s useless to even try, it’s not mine.” It is also worth learning to beware of conventional wisdom: “I will only become happy when I find love“ for life ”, work“ just for me ”, etc. Allegations of this kind doom us to inaction, especially if they are backed up by devastating remarks from our loved ones. “Although each of us is the architect of our own happiness, we cannot completely detach ourselves from the influence of others,” the psychoanalyst recalls. – It is difficult to maintain faith in oneself in the absence of support from the outside. And it’s even harder to cultivate that confidence if you grew up with anxious parents.”

Alien desires

Among the most serious obstacles to our development is the difficulty in realizing our destiny. We are literally programmed to take other people’s desires as our own. As children, we imbibe the expectations of our parents. Many of us try to live up to them, ignoring our own desires, but at the same time live with a relentless, painful feeling of emptiness …

* F. Kafka “Process”. ABC, 2009.

** Z. Freud “The Interpretation of Dreams”. AST, 2008.

*** M. Seligman “The New Positive Psychology”. Sofia, 2006.

**** I. Yalom “Existential Psychotherapy”. Remis, 2008.