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Does not the possibility or the power to do something about the situation at hand confer on one the responsibility to do it?

Rollo May

Humor is the healthy way of feeling “distance” between one’s self and the problem, a way of standing off and looking at one’s problem with perspective.
ROLLO MAY

Distance Feel Healthy Humor Look Perspective Problem Self Stand Way
Religion is whatever the individual takes to be his ultimate concern. One’s religious attitude is to be found at that point where he has a conviction that there are values in human existence worth living and dying for.
ROLLO MAY

Attitude Concern Condition Die Individual Life Point Religion Ultimate
All our feelings, like the artist’s paints and brush, are ways of communicating and sharing something meaningful from us to the world.
ROLLO MAY

Artist Brush Communicating Feeling Like Meaningful Paint Share Something Way World
Good art wounds as well as delights. It must, because our defenses against the truth are wound so tightly around us. But as art chips away at our defenses, it also opens us to healing potentialities that transcend intellectual games and ego-preserving strategies.
ROLLO MAY

Against Around Defence Delight Good Tightly Truth Well Wound
When people feel their insignificance as individual persons, they also suffer an undermining of their sense of human responsibility.
ROLLO MAY

Human Individual Responsibility Significance Suffer
The opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice, it is conformity.
ROLLO MAY

Conformity Courage Cowardice Opposite Society
Creativity arises out of the tension between spontaneity and limitations, the latter (like the river banks) forcing the spontaneity into the various forms which are essential to the work of art or poem.
ROLLO MAY

Arise Between Creativity Limitation Spontaneously Tension
People attain worth and dignity by the multitude of decisions they make from day by day. These decisions require courage.
ROLLO MAY

Attain Courage Deciosn Decision From Day Multitude People Require Worth
Every human being must have a point at which he stands against the culture, where he says, this is me and the damned world can go to hell.
ROLLO MAY

Against Being Culture Every Human Me Must Point Say Stand
Courage is not a virtue of value among other personal values like love or fidelity. It is the foundation that underlies and gives reality to all other virtues and personal values. Without courage our love pales into mere dependency. Without courage our fidelity becomes conformism.
ROLLO MAY

Among Courage Fidelity Love Personal Value Virtue
The acorn becomes an oak by means of automatic growth; no commitment is necessary. The kitten similarly becomes a cat on the basis of instinct. Nature and being are identical in creatures like them. But a man or woman becomes fully human only by his or her choices and his or her commitment to them.
ROLLO MAY

Acorn Automatic Become Commitment Growth Mean Necessary Oak
Violence arises not out of superfluity of power but out of powerlessness.
ROLLO MAY

Arise Out Power Powerlessness Superfully Violence
Beauty is the experience that gives us a sense of joy and a sense of peace simultaneously.
ROLLO MAY

Beauty Experience Give Joy Peace Sense Simultaneously
Heroes are necessary in order to enable the citizens to find their own ideals, courage and wisdom in the society. The hero carries our hopes, our aspirations, our ideals, our beliefs. In the deepest sense the hero is created by us; he or she is born collectively as our own myth.
ROLLO MAY

Citizen Courage Enable Find Hero Ideal Necessary Order Own Society Wisdom
I learned that healing and cure are active processes in which I myself needed to participate.
ROLLO MAY

Active Cure Heal Learn Myself Need Participate Process
Many people feel they are powerless to do anything effective with their lives. It takes courage to break out of the settled mold, but most find conformity more comfortable. This is why the opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice, it’s conformity.
ROLLO MAY

Anything Effective Feel Live Most People Powerless
When you are completely absorbed or caught up in something, you become oblivious to things around you, or to the passage of time. It is this absorption in what you are doing that frees your unconscious and releases your creative imagination.
ROLLO MAY

Absorb Around Become Caught Completely Obvious Something Thing You
The mature person becomes able to differentiate feelings into as many nuances, strong and passionate experiences, or delicate and sensitive ones, as in the different passages of music in a symphony. Unfortunately, many of us have feelings limited like notes in a bugle call.
ROLLO MAY

Become Differentiate Experience Feeling Many Mature Nuance Passionate Person Strong
Creativity is neither the product of neurosis nor simple talent, but an intense courageous encounter with the Gods.
ROLLO MAY

Courageous Creativity Encounter God Intense Neither Neurosis Product Simple Talent
Ecstasy is the accurate term for the intensity of consciousness that occurs in the creative act.
ROLLO MAY

Art Consciousness Creative Ecstasy Intensity Nobody Occvur Totally
Vanity and narcissism – the compulsive need to be admired and praised – undermine one’s courage, for one then fights on someone else’s conviction rather than one’s own.
ROLLO MAY

Admire Compulsive Fight Narcissism Ned One Praise Underminem Courage Vanity
There is no authentic inner freedom that does not, sooner or later, also affect and change human history.
ROLLO MAY

Affect Authentic Change Freedom History Human Inner Later Sooner
Real freedom is the ability to pause between stimulus and response, and in that pause, choose.
ROLLO MAY

Ability Choose Freedom Pause Real Response Stimulus
Artists love to immerse themselves in chaos in order to put it into form, just as God created form out of chaos in Genesis. Forever unsatisfied with the mundane, the apathetic, the conventional, they always push on to newer worlds.
ROLLO MAY

Artist Chaos Create Form Genesis God Immerse Into Love Order Out Themselves
A mien which seems to say, “You are looking at somebody now.” For this inner sense of worth that comes with being in love does not seem to depend essentially on whether the love is returned or not.
ROLLO MAY

Depend Essentially Fall Inner Look Love Men Now Return Seem Sense Somebody Sudden Today
Every human being must have a point at which he stands against the culture, where he says, “This is me and the world be damned!” Leaders have always been the ones to stand against the society – Socrates, Christ, Freud, all the way down the line.
ROLLO MAY

Against Always Culture Down Every Human Being Leader Line One Point Stand World
This personal freedom to think and feel and speak authentically and to be conscious of so doing is the quality that distinguishes us as human.
ROLLO MAY

Authentically Conscious Distinguish Doing Feel Freedom Think Human Personal Quality Speak

Does not the possibility or the power to do something about the situation at hand confer on one the responsibility to do it?

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Does not the possibility or the power to do something about the situation at hand confer on one the responsibility to do it?

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