Thus all life itself represents a risk, and the more lovingly we live our lives the more risks we take. Of the thousands, maybe even millions, of risks we can take in a lifetime the greatest is the risk of growing up. Growing up is the act of stepping from the childhood into adulthood. Actually it is more of a fearful leap(猛冲,跳) than a step, and it is a leap that many people never really take in their lifetimes. Though they may outwardly appear to be adults, even successful adults, perhaps the majority of “grown-ups” remain until their death psychological children who have never truly separated themselves from their parents and the power that their parents have over them. Perhaps because it was so poignantly(深刻地) personal to me, I feel I can best illustrate the essence of growing up and the enormity(艰巨性) of the risk involved by describing the giant step I myself took into adulthood at the end of my fifteenth year-fortunately very early in life. Although this step was a conscious decision, let me preface(以……为开端) my account(叙述) of it by saying that I had no awareness(意识) whatsoever(无论什么) at the time that what I was doing was growing up. I only knew that I was leaping into the unknown.
At the age of thirteen I went away from home to Phillips Exeter Academy, a boy’s preparatory(预备的) school of the very highest reputation, to which my brother had gone before me. I knew that I was fortunate to be going there, because attendance at Exeter was part of a well-defined pattern that would lead me to one of the best Ivy(常青藤) League colleges and from there into the highest echelons(阶层) of the Establishment(权势集团), whose doors would be wide open to me on account of my educational background. I felt extremely lucky to have been born the child of well-to-do parents who could afford “the best education that money could buy,” and I had a great sense of security which came from being a part of what was so obviously a proper pattern. The only problem was that almost immediately after starting Exeter I became miserably unhappy. The reasons for my unhappiness were totally obscure(难以说清楚的) to me then and are still quite profoundly(极大地) mysterious(难以理解的) to me today. I just did not seem to fit. I didn’t seem to fit with the faculty(院系), the students, the courses, the architecture, the social life, the total environment. Yet there seemed nothing to do other than to try to make the best of it and try to mold(塑造) my imperfections(缺点) so that I could fit more comfortably into this pattern that had been laid out(安排) for me and that was so obviously the right pattern. And try I did for two and a half years. Yet daily my life appeared more meaningless and I felt more wretched(悲惨的). The last year I did little but sleep, for only in sleep could I find any comfort. In retrospect(回顾) I think perhaps in my sleep I was resting and unconsciously preparing myself for the leap I was about to take. I took it when I returned home for spring vacation of my third year and announced that I was not going to return to school.
My father said, “But you can’t quit-it’s the best education money can buy. Don’t you realize what you’d be throwing away?”
“I know it’s a good school,” I replied, “but I’m not going back.”
“Why can’t you adjust to it, make another go of it?” my parents asked.
“I don’t know,” I answered, feeling totally inadequate. “I don’t even know why I hate it so. But I hate it and I’m not going back.”
“Well, what are you going to do, then? Since you seem to want to play so loose with your future, just what is it you plan to do?”
Again I miserably replied, “I don’t know. All I know is I’m not going back there.”
My parents were understandably alarmed(担忧的) and took me forthwith(立刻) to a psychiatrist, who stated that I was depressed and recommended a month’s hospitalization, giving me a day to decide whether or not this was what I wanted. That night was the only time I ever considered suicide. Entering a psychiatric hospital seemed quite appropriate to me. I was, as the psychiatrist said, depressed. My brother had adjusted to Exeter; why couldn’t I? I knew that my difficulty in adjusting was entirely my fault, and I felt totally inadequate, incompetent and worthless. Worse, I believed that I was probably insane(精神失常的). Had not my father said, “You must be crazy to throw away such a good education?” If I returned to Exeter I would be returning to all that was safe, secure, right, proper, constructive, proven and known. Yet it was not me, in the depths of my being I knew it was not my path. But what was my path? If I did not return, all that lay ahead was unknown undetermined, unsafe, insecure, unsanctified(不被认可的), unpredictable: Anyone who would take such a path must be mad. I was terrified. But then, at the moment of my greatest despair, from my unconscious there came a sequence of words, like a strange disembodied(无实体的) oracle(神谕) from a voice that was not mine: “The only real security in life lies in relishing(享受) life’s insecurity.” Even if it meant being crazy and out of step with all that seemed holy(神圣的), I had decided to be me. I rested. In the morning I went to see the psychiatrist again and told him that I would never return to Exeter but that I was ready to enter his hospital. I had taken the leap into the unknown. I had taken my destiny into my own hands.
The process of growing up usually occurs very gradually, with multiple little leaps into the unknown, such as when a eight-year-old boy first takes the risk of riding his bike down to the country store all by himself or a fifteen-year-old goes out on his or her first date. If you doubt that these represent real risks, then you cannot remember the anxiety involved. If you observe even the healthiest of children you will see not only an eagerness(渴望) to risk new and adult activities but also, side by side(并排地), a reluctance(不情愿), a shrinking(退缩的) back, a clinging to the safe and familiar, a holding onto dependency and childhood. Moreover, on more or less subtle levels, you can find this same ambivalence(矛盾情绪) in an adult, including yourself, with the elderly particularly tending to cling to the old, known and familiar. Almost daily at the age of forty I am presented with subtle opportunities to risk doing things differently, opportunities to grow. I am still growing up, and not as fast as I might. Among all the little leaps we might take, there are also some enormous ones, as when by leaving school I was also forsaking(放弃) a whole pattern of life and values according to which I had been raised. Many never take any of these potential(潜在的) enormous leaps, and consequently many do not ever really grow up at all. Despite their outward appearances they remain psychologically still very much the children of their parents, living by hand-me-down values, motivated primarily by their parents’ approval and disapproval(even when their parents are long dead and buried), never having dared to truly take their destiny into their own hands.
While such great leaps are most commonly made during adolescence, they can be made at any age. A thirty-five-year-old mother of three, married to a controlling(控制欲强的), stultifying(乏味得使人呆滞的), inflexible(顽固的), chauvinistic(沙文主义的) husband, gradually and painfully comes to realize that her dependency on him and their marriage is a living death. He blocks all her attempts to change the nature of their relationship. With incredible bravery she divorces him, sustaining(承受) the burden of his recriminations(反责) and the criticism of neighbors, and risks an unknown future alone with her children, but free for the first time in her life to be her own person. Depressed following a heart attack, a fifty-two-year-old businessman looks back on a life of frantic(狂乱的) ambition(雄心) to constantly(不断地) make more money and rise ever higher in the corporate hierarchy and finds it meaningless. After long reflection he realizes that he has been driven by a need for approval from a domineering(专横的), constantly critical mother; he has almost worked himself to death so as to be finally successful in her eyes. Risking and transcending her disapproval for the first time in his life, as well as braving(勇敢面对) the ire(愤怒) of his high-living( 生活奢靡的) wife and children, who are reluctant(不情愿的) to give up their expensive life style, he moves to the country and opens up a little shop where he restores antique furniture. Such major changes, such leaps into independence and self-determination, are enormously painful at any age and require supreme(极大的) courage, yet they are not infrequent results of psychotherapy. Indeed, because of the enormity of the risks involved, they often require psychotherapy for their accomplishment(实现) not because therapy diminished the risk but because it supports and teaches courage.
But what has this business of growing up to do with love, apart from the fact that the extension of the self involved in loving is an enlargement of the self into new dimensions?
First of all, the examples of the changes described and all other such major changes are acts of self-love. It is precisely(正是) because I valued myself that I was unwilling to remain miserable in a school and whole social environment that did not fit my needs. It is because the housewife had regard(尊重) for herself that she refused to tolerate any longer a marriage that so totally limited her freedom and repressed(约束) her personality. It is because the businessman cared for himself that he was no longer willing to nearly kill himself in order to meet the expectations of his mother.
Second, not only does love for oneself provide the motive for such major changes; it also is the basis for the courage to risk them. It is only because my parents had clearly loved and valued me as a young child that I felt sufficiently secure in myself to defy(违抗) their expectations and radically(彻底地) depart from the pattern they had laid out for me. Although I felt inadequate and worthless and possibly crazy in doing what I did, I was able to tolerate these feelings only because at the same time, on an even deeper level, I sensed myself to be a good person no matter how different I might be. In daring to be different, even if it meant to be crazy, I was responding to earlier loving message from my parents, hundreds of them, which said, “You are a beautiful and beloved individual. It is good to be you. We will love you no matter what you do, as long as you are you.” Without that security of my parents’ love reflected in my own self-love, I would have chosen the known instead of the unknown and continued to follow my parents’ preferred pattern at the extreme cost of my self’s basic uniqueness.
Finally, it is only when one has taken the leap into the unknown of total self-hood, psychological independence and unique individuality that one is free to proceed along still higher paths of spiritual growth and free to manifest love in its greatest dimensions. As long as one marries, enters a career or has children to satisfy one’s parents or the expectations of anyone else, including society as a whole, the commitment(担当) by its very nature will be a shallow one. As long as one loves ones children primarily because one is expected to behave in a loving manner toward them, then the parent will be insensitive(不敏感的) to the more subtle needs of the children and unable to express love in the more subtle, yet often most important ways. The highest forms of love are inevitably totally free choices and not acts of conformity(循规蹈矩).