PURPOSE DRIVEN LIFE, ORGANIZATION AND LEADERSHIP

Ozodi Thomas Osuji

       What is the purpose of life? What is the purpose of the organization(s) that one finds ones self in?  

    A founder of an organization, for profit or non profit organization must have a purpose for his organization.  His purpose is essentially what he himself is living for; what he wants to accomplish with is life.  He uses his organizational structure and leadership and management capabilities to accomplish that purpose. 

       On the individual level, I want to understand mental health and mental disorder. The next question is: why understand mental health and mental illness? What is mental health for? 

         To sell mental health related material to people it must have a value for them; what is that value?

         The purpose of seeking mental health is that it gives people peace and happiness. What does lack of mental health do for people? 

           Mental illness disturbs people’s peace and happiness.

         To understand mental health and lack of it, we must study the human body (biology, chemistry and physics); we must understand human thinking processes; we must understand human behaviors; we must understand how human society works and influences the individual and we must understand religion, philosophy and psychology.  These variables impact human beings and no person can be understood without studying them.

         The practical purpose of psychology is to understand the obstacles to human beings living fully and remove those obstacles so that people may live fully. People ought to live fully doing whatever they want to do.

         Alfred Adler asked this question:  What should life mean to the individual? He answered his own question by saying that life ought to mean having social interest.  In his view, we ought to live to serve other people and society. 

         This approach to life is more in the nature of philosophy than anything else; it is good for raising children but it is not very helpful in understanding human psychology.

NEUROSIS: THE PURSUIT OF THE IDEAL SELF AND IDEAL WORLD

         In the here and now world, people perceive their selves as worthless and the world as meaningless and reject them and construct an alternative valued self and meaningful world, which are ideational, mental constructs, imaginary and not real, and try to live as them. 

         In pursuing the seeming ideal self and ideal world, people make their lives miserable and make the lives of those around them miserable. Pursuit of the imaginary ideal makes one compare ones self, and compare other people to the imaginary ideal standards, and see their differences, imperfections hence feel bad (depressed) and make other people’s lives miserable.

         Yet the pursuit of the ideal self and ideal world gives people’s lives some sort of worth and meaning, albeit neurotic, that is, false worth and meaning; a worth and meaning that disturbs people’s peace.

        (Normalcy is mini neurosis and psychosis is large neurosis. The normal person wants to be ideal but is not driven to be ideal; the neurotic is driven to be ideal but knows that he is not ideal; the psychotic not only wants to be ideal but believes that he is already ideal hence lives in a false, imaginary ideal world, a fantasy world of his own making.)

       Neurotics cannot attain the ideal self and ideal world they desire and must feel frustrated and, ultimately, defeated and give up on life, work and want to kill themselves.

        However, it is at this juncture when the neurotic idealist recognizes the impossibility of realizing his ideal goals that he gives up all self constructed meaning and worth and accepts reality, as it is, meaningless and purposeless and worthless. At this point he is reconciled to the world as it is, not as he wants it to become; he is now healthy and mature; he has given up childish, immature desire to recreate his self and the world to his desired picture of what he and the world should become. A mature person gives up quest for what should be and accepts what is.

         It is in accepting what is, as it is, that the individual finds peace and happiness. Unhappiness emanates from in rejecting the real and questing for the imaginary ideal (self, other selves and the world).

       (Some neurotic persons, at this juncture, turn to God, and to the self and world God created that they did not create, hence a world that does not give them independent power. In pursuit of God, they feel peaceful and happy.  Such persons finally relinquish the immature, neurotic belief that human beings are in control of their lives; they are not; when people accept that a higher power, God, nature, is in charge of their lives they tend to become peaceful and happy.)

          The pursuit of the ideal self of ones own invention leads to anxiety (from not attaining it), depression (from not attaining it), paranoia (from efforts to defend the unreal ideal self), shame (from disappointing the ideal self).  Peace, happiness and mental health emanates from giving it up the pursuit of the false, ideal self and its ideal world.

EXISTENTIAL PSYCHOLOGY

       Existential psychology teaches that living as a separated self and life in body is meaningless and worthless. Aware of this reality we seek imaginary meaning and worth. 

      Imaginary meaning and worth are not real meaning and worth and their pursuit gives people mental illness (anxiety, depression, paranoia, schizophrenia, mania etc).

        The ideal self and its ideal world, no matter how much we desire them, cannot be attained. Pursuing the impossible ideal in the meantime disturbs people’s peace and causes them mental disorders.

        To be mentally healthy, we must accept our reality, as it is, and desist from pursuing imagery meaning and worth.  We must accept reality as it is and not seek unreality and defend that unreality.

        We must accept our meaningless and worthless self/world and still feel fine about ourselves.

         We do not need to root our worth and meanings in imaginary worth/meaning hence feel worthless for not attaining it.

        Having accepted our self, as is, neither worthy nor not worthy, neither meaningful nor not meaningful, we work for our mutual social interest; that is, we do what serves all people's well fare.

         Meaning and worth, what there is of it, is thus sought from doing public good. This is Alfred Adler’s solution. It is also the existentialist solution except that the existentialist wants folks to do what they like doing provided that they are good for society and are not overly rooted in abstract morality. 

        Adler can be overly moralistic and narrowly defines what serves social interests. What serves social interest is what Adler thinks serves social interests! Clearly, many other things may serve social interests than Adler would approve. For example, Adler was opposed to sex outside marriage. Hugh Hefner, on the other hand, thinks that access to pornography liberates people from their fear of their own bodies.

        Clearly, both Adler and Hefner are partially correct; the thing to do is never to adopt an either or approach to complex issues, but to seek a middle ground. Whereas freedom on sex issues is liberating yet people can become addicted to sex and live to seek sex. Addiction to sex, as well as to drugs, becomes a means of coping with people’s meaningless existence. How to relax over sexual matters and yet not be addicted to frivolous sex is the real question.

       (In my view, love for all people is the answer to all human problems.  Before you do anything pause and ask you why you are about to do it.  If it is for love for you and other people, go ahead and do it; if not, do not do it.)

THE PURPOSE OF EXISTENTIAL PSYCHOTHERAPY

        The purpose of existential psychotherapy is to get people to accept their apparent worthless and meaningless selves, and still live well. People ought to live fully but without any illusion of having worth and meaning. 

         Clearly, there is no objective meaning and worth that we all can perceive and verify. Consider that any one can choose to and destroy other people’s lives.  This means that there is no intrinsic worth and meaning in life; people are just intelligent animals but not more special than other animals and trees.

     We can accept reality, as it is, and enter social intercourse, politics, without any illusions of transforming ourselves and people into perfect angels.  We accept people as the imperfect animals that they are and seek ways to organize our lives for our mutual welfare.

         One should not have delusions of grandeur, as Hitler and his Nazis and Joseph Stalin and his socialists did; they made euphoric and unrealistic efforts to transform man and his society to their impossible conceptual ideal alternatives.

       If people accept metaphysics, Belief in God, that is fine, as long as they have no illusions of worth and meaning in the here and now world. It may well be the case that there is a worth and meaning outside our lives in ego and body.

CONCLUSION

         One must ascertain what one considers to be very important for one. What does life mean for you? What do you want to accomplish with your life?  In doing what would your life be fulfilled? 

        Once you have clarity as to what life should be all about for you (not for other people, for in the world of differences and separation, each person has his own idea of what he is living for), then go for it. 

        Devote your activities to living to attain you goals, dreams, objectives, visions or whatever you choose to call them. Stay laser focused on your goals.

       Have a plan to achieve your goals.  Do everything that you do for the attainment of your goals.

       Lead yourself and other people, those who share your dreams, to where you want to go. Set up an organization and use it to attain your goals.

       Your life, activities, organization, leadership, management etc ought to be directed towards attaining your dreams and goals. 

          Since we all need to work with other people and organizations to enable us achieve our goals, one must network with other people and organizations; one must cooperate with those who are helpful for one to attain ones goal and vision of what life ought to be.  

         The purpose driven life is the best type of life there is; it gives fulfillment, peace and happiness. (And if what you are doing has social value and other people are willing to buy it, it gives you wealth; however, making money should not be the sole criterion for deciding on your life’s goal.)

        For me, understanding mental health and mental illness and the factors that contribute to them has been an abiding goal. Everything I do is towards this end.

        The organization I set up, and work for, is geared towards understanding people and helping them live mentally healthy hence happy lives. 

       My leadership and management activities have one and only one purpose: to enable me attain understanding of mental health and teach it to other people, and in the process enable people live mentally healthy, peaceful and happy lives.

       At present people live in ignorance of what constitutes mental health hence live miserable lives.

       To the extent that I help people to understand their mental health issues and live healthy, peaceful, happy and fulfilled lives, I have performed my function in making human existence beautiful despite its apparent meaningless and worthless nature.

         What are you living for? What is your life’s goal? What are you doing to contribute to human well being?

         Each of us must answer those questions for himself; no one else can answer them for the individual.

      *Real Self Psychology or Existential Psychology aims at understanding people’s real selves (construed as pure intelligence aka spirit), as opposed to their ideal selves (aka ego) and enabling them to live from their real selves.  It is in living from their real selves that people live peaceful, happy and productive lives.

Ozodi Thomas Osuji

February 12, 2007

Robot  Villager

# 1 PURPOSE DRIVEN LIFE, ORGANIZATION AND LEADERSHIP ...Read the full article. Posted by Robot| 13.02.2007 08:06

Oloye  Villager

# 2 Oga Osuji, you are here again. This is Oloye. My sister is still looking for you. You are here with same old depressing fixation on mental illness found in all your presentations. I had imagined you bald, old, short, with large reading glasses and funny looking. My imagination was right when I saw your photo at: http://www.chatafrikarticles.com/authors/6/Ozodi-Thomas-Osuji-Ph.D Posted by Oloye| 13.02.2007 10:12