The Road Map of Life Om - 301 Summary Paper

The Road Map of Life

OM301 Summary Paper

Lori Edwards-Azuru

Professor Cheryl Sullivan

Career and Life Assessment, Module 1 (OM301)

August 28, 20011

        There have been many transformations in my life over the last year as well as the last ten years. I have spent countless days as well as nights trying to figure out why my life has seemed so complicated and what went wrong. Life seemed as though it were a puzzle that I could not solve. Five years ago, I began to explore this journey called life more closely. My purpose was not only to solve my own mystery about life, but also to use this information to help others to discover their paths as well. While on walking on this sandy beach called life, I did not realize that God had specific plans for my life. Looking back now, I can see he had to work out various issues in my life and many of them can be recognized in the textbook, “The Journey of Adulthood” (Bjorklund, 2011).                                                                         The concepts in this book have been supportive in the role of mapping out my past as well as, what I can look forward to in the near future. I have learned to gage how I am progressing by reading these concepts; in addition to gaining an understanding to how the mind works. During this course, I was exposed to some new theories as well as revisited some old ones. The three theories that I found to be of major importance to my life were Maslow’s hierarchy theory, psychologists Richard Ryan and Edwards Deci theory known as Self-Determination Theory, as well as my favorite discovery, The New Paradigm The Circular Rule or Renewal Cycle Theory.                                                                                        Abraham Maslow originally introduced his concept of hierarchy needs in his 1943 paper, “A Theory of Human Motivation.” Maslow soon followed up with his book “Motivation and Personality” (Maslow, 1944). This hierarchy suggests that people are motivated to fulfill basic needs before moving on to other needs. “Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is most often displayed as a pyramid. The lowest levels of the pyramid consist of the most basic needs, while the more complex needs are located at the top of the pyramid. Needs at the bottom of the pyramid are basic physical requirements, including the need for food, water, sleep and warmth. Once these lower levels have been met, people can move on to the next level of needs, which are for safety and security as people progress up the pyramid, needs become increasingly psychological and social. Soon, the need for love, friendship, and intimacy become important. Further, up to the pyramid, the need for personal esteem and feelings of accomplishment take priority” (Cherry, 2011).                                                                                                                 I found this theory to be very significant in my childhood, adolescent years, as well as my young adult years. As far back as I can remember I was always afraid to sleep alone in the bed at night. My parents had met my psychological needs such as air water and food. However, the need for my safety and security had not yet been fully met. I continued to feed into these insecurities well into my teenage years. However, once I moved out of my parent’s house, the insecurity of sleeping alone left me; the desire to be on my own superseded my fear of safety and security needs.                                                                                         As I progressed into my early twenties, it appeared as though I was struggling in the same area for quite some time. I was constantly getting involved in dysfunctional relationships with men; I found this to be the most difficult obstacle in my life. I have always sought after that special someone in my life to complete my false idea of happiness. I never considered that I was different from any other woman; assuming that most women wanted the same things out of life.                 This observation brings one to believe he or she is on the third level of Maslow’s tier, “Love and Belongingness” (Maslow, 1944). Maslow believed that every human needed to feel a sense of love and belongingness; although some seem to need it more than others do. I came from a five-sibling family. I grew up with both parents in the home. However, because there were four girls and one boy, my brother seemingly got most of the attention from my father. The girls had the task of cleaning the house, cooking dinner, as well as looking after the younger siblings. This allowed little time with our father who worked hard and long hours. As a young girl I did not ever feel as though we would not have food or shelter, although the way my parents complained about bills maybe I should have. However, feeling love and belongingness to my father was always an issue for me. These issues followed me well into my young adult life. I was always attracted to men who would seem nice and friendly on the onset; nevertheless, as time went by, they became increasingly controlling and emotionally abusive.                                          My opinion of myself was limited to my past. I had so many failures in my past that I could not perceive that I could ever change. At twenty-one years of age, I could not and did not understand that things would eventually change with time, therefore myself-esteem at that point in my life was focused on; no matter how hard I tried, there was something about me that was not worthy of a better life. Maslow’s fourth tier deals with “self-esteem” (Bjorklund, 2011). According to Maslow, “All humans have a need to be respected and to have self-esteem and self-respect. Esteem presents the normal human desire to be accepted and valued by others” (Boeree, 1998).                                                                                                        Although my desire was to have a good life, I did not think I was not capable of going through the process of God’s divine way to get there; consequently, I would try to cheat the system to make the road easier for me to travel. I found out many years later that it is impossible to bypass the plans, and the road that God wants you to travel; in saying that there lies the dilemma. If one cannot bypass God’s system, how will one ever be able to obey all of his commandments? I had already tried and found it to be impossible, that is without the help of Christ. This challenge left me feeling hopeless that I would ever get to the place that God wanted me to be. What I have gained in the area of self-esteem is that there are many challenges when dealing with one’s esteem.                                                                                         One of the key challenges that I dealt with was, self-serving attributions. I would do the things that made me feel superior as well as good about myself and would often take the glory for my accomplishments; however, when failure came along, I no longer wanted to take ownership for the situation. Even if I were at fault, I would resolve that I did not have any other option but the one I choose. Obviously, I was not taking responsibility for my choices. This behavior when on for many years of my life; it was like looking in a one-dimensional mirror. As time progressed, God allowed people to come into my life that added dimensions to my mirror. Some were good for me and others were harmful. Now that myself-esteem was developing, I was judging myself through a mirror that was a bit more revealing. I felt others saw me as being strong. Therefore, it was easy to take on that role; I did not realize it was doing me more harm than good. Because it was a false perception of who I was trying to be, it was not always my true identity. This left me with no room for change; I felt obligated to maintain this image to preserve my pride as well as for the benefit of those who were around me, especially my close friends.                                                                                         Maslow’s hierarchy of need’s theory tends to merge into a theory that is closely related. Psychologist Richard Ryan and Edward Deci formulate this theory. This theory is known as “Self-Determination” (Bjorklund, 2011). Self-Determination Theory (STD) is a theory of motivation. It is concerned with supporting one’s natural or built-in tendencies to behave in effective and healthy ways; in other words, the inside influences in one’s life begin to overtake the outside influences. One can now make better choices due to being set free from the inner man’s struggles. “Ryan and Deci believed that the need for personal growth and personality development is an essential part of human nature” (Bjorklund, 2011).                                 There are three needs that (STD) requires to achieve satisfaction. The first need is competence. One has to believe they have the ability to succeed in they are trying to do. When I turned thirty-five years, old God began to build on the foundation that he had laid so many years prior. This is when I became aware of myself-determination. It was like I was starting all over again after many years of attempted failures. I thought I was further along than I actually was; however, what I did not recognize is that I had gone ten years in the wrong direction. It was now time for me to acknowledge who God had already determined that I was. I have always known she was there, but I ignored her because she was too difficult to achieve. I had made many attempts to rescue her, although it seemed she was unattainable. I desired to change. However, I could not. The steps to change seemed so far out of my reach. I needed to find a way to satisfy my desire to become free from the pain of failure. I achieved competence when I began to believe that I could do all things through Christ.                                                         Martin Seligman describes learned optimism as “A learned way of explaining both good and bad life events that in turn enhances our perceived control and adaptive responses to them” (Seligman, 1992). Learning how to use the word of God to clarify my circumstances was the first step of my becoming competent. This process gave me hope that I could change and grow to be what Christ had intended me to become. The benefit of this process was that I had a stepping-stone that leads to thoughts that are more competent by having faith in God who was more powerful than my poor decision-making. The Holy Spirit gave me the strength to rise to the challenge. It allowed me to recognize specific things about my personality that needed to change. The word of God gave me alternatives; and in reading the word of God, it changed my attitude about wanting to change. I now had the power to live a better life.