Existential Psychology

Human Growth

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If we lived to be 10,000 years old maybe we could put off chasing our dreams or becoming the people we were meant to be. Many don’t adequately realize how short time really is, and they secretly believe they are going to live forever. This theme comes up over and over in therapy and I’ve come to believe the personal feeling of immortality is the rule, not the exception. The irony is that precisely because our lifespan is over in a flash we can’t face it so we resort to not thinking about it at all, believing we will have all the time in the world for our projects.

It’s a tragedy that the job of growth and self-actualization can never be finished in the limited years allotted to us, a realization that becomes more potent when you make the conscious choice to use the time you do have for your personal development. But it’s far more of a tragedy to live in a fairy tale and waste your precious existence with all the mundane trivialities of life.

When we talk about people who are ‘really old’ it shows how egocentric we really are because 80 years is nothing. More advanced life forms in the universe would probably laugh out loud at our concept of time and the idea that the span of human life is enough to do anything really valuable. But it’s all we have and the positive side is that honest recognition of the fact can spur you to action and to do whatever it takes to set the conditions that are necessary for your growth and happiness now.

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