“So much depends on what we can make of what happens to us.”
“I did not know that I could only get the most out of life by giving myself up to it,” wrote British psychoanalyst Marion Milner under a pseudonym in her remarkable century-old field guide to understanding desires. Recognizing what we truly want is challenging; daily, we grapple with “this sadness of never understanding ourselves.” To want something signifies acknowledging a gap—between the life we have and the life we desire, reflecting who we are versus who we aspire to be.
At the core of our existence lies a haunting, universal question: “Why are we not better than we are?”
In search of answers bridging our real and ideal selves, we turn to religion, psychotherapy, shamans, self-help gurus, fasting, prayer, personality tests, and autosuggestion. While a degree of restlessness fuels our creative energy—the “divine dissatisfaction” from which art emerges—perpetual feelings of inadequacy stifle our potential. As Kurt Vonnegut noted, nothing hinders happiness more than a sense of insufficiency.
In his impactful book On Getting Better (public library), Adam Phillips critiques our culture’s obsession with self-improvement. He argues that this fixation may often lead to self-sabotage, distracting us from our authentic visions.
He reflects on how our desire for an ideal future often complicates our present:
“We can’t imagine our lives without the wish to improve them, without the progress myths that inform so much of what we do, and of what we want. The future seems to promise a better life, luring us on.”
However, Phillips cautions that every ideal not only represents a desire but also presumes knowledge about what is optimal, making the future fundamentally unknowable. He notes:
“One cannot know the consequences of one’s wanting… We are largely unconscious, unaware of what we want.”
Phillips offers a perspective on trauma, a term often misused in our culture:
“There is no life without trauma; it is not merely something interrupted, but an integral part of our existence. What matters is how we metabolize our experiences, transforming them rather than becoming mere victims.”
The risks of living fully, engaging with the unknown, are fundamental to avoid stagnation. As Mario Benedetti emphasized in his poem “Do Not Spare Yourself,” self-surprise is essential to our growth.
Complement this exploration with insights from pioneering psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott on the qualities of a healthy mind, and revisit Phillips’ thoughts on the paradoxes of transformation.
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