Peace and Risk

It's been a long time since I've read Viktor Frankl's Man's Search For Meaning. I came across a quote from the book today that had to have seeped into my subconscious, because my post The Peace Game makes the same point. Frankl's words carry much more weight than mine though when he says, "What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task." 

I don't bring this up just to reiterate the message, but to try and tease out another thought. One that has to do with investing in the "worthwhile goal". I'll use the example of a romantic relationship to display it.

When we're first attracted to someone we're faced with an option: do we "make a move" to get to know if the other person feels something similar, or do we try and abort our feelings? The path to gain this knowledge demands an emotional investment that might not pay off. In fact, it may even be slightly damaging to our self esteem. We have to put something we posses on the line. Our ego for a phone number. If it's not rebuffed, there's a return on the investment. 

If we fast forward decades from this common budding moment and see that the couple ended up happily married for fifty years with children and grandchildren, the initial cost of having part of one's heart on the line for some digits is relatively low. And even if everything hinged on that initial "move" to get the phone number it's the continued reinvestment into the relationships that sustains it. Without the couple taking the gains that were earned and putting them back into their lives there would be no development. And the lack of development most likely means no relationship. There is no way of completely escaping possible loss.

So, if our happiness is dependent on freely choosing a "worthwhile goal", then the goal demands an investment strategy. One where those involved bear actual risk. In that risk though lies the ability to build towards the goal. The investment is what separates mere display, such as empty political and corporate rhetoric, with those that actually have the goal. Risk creates ownership and, as a result, allows one to posses the peace of a life worth living.