A Perfect Moment: Moving Towards Self-Actualization

A Perfect Moment: Moving Towards Self-Actualization

 

©2014 Scott Wilson

 

Have you ever had a perfect moment? Some soldiers experience a moment in combat where the battle 'crystalizes', time slows, and they are able to do exactly what needed to be done to stay alive and keep their teammates safe.  I have these moments too but not always in dangerous or stressful situations.  In fact, the one I wish to discuss was quite the opposite.

 

 

It is a day in October 2014. My youngest daughter is twelve years old.  On this day she had a friend over to play. Since the night was drawing late we dragged ourselves off to the truck, and my daughter and I unceremoniously drive her friend back to home.  We drop off her friend so now it is just my youngest and myself wending our way back home through the inky darkness.  The radio is rambling on when it suddenly switches to the song “Crocodile Rock” by Elton John.

 

 

Instantly, the moment crystalizes as my little girl and I begin crooning the lyrics to “Crocodile Rock” together and happily bopping to the beat. It is a moment of sheer joy as we connect together through the notes of a song.  As I look over to her I can see the simple pleasure in her body and her features.  She is simply a young girl just having fun with her dad.  If any cares had existed they have all melted away for both of us in this instant of time.  The world has vanished.  There is just the two of us and the song.

 

 

It is almost like an out-of-body experience as time slowed down and I actually experience myself observing my own moment like I am some disconnected external viewer.  I am suddenly a young teenager back in the 70’s and a present day father all at the same time.  Here is my daughter, the same age as myself when I first sang this song.  This simple music with its catchy tune and peppy lyrics has resonated through the years and generations connecting us in the here and now.  In this moment I feel blessed. Blessed for my own childhood but also blessed for my own child and the joyful time that we can share.

 

 

I do not know if my daughter will ever remember this night but I believe this moment will stay with me forever. It had a brief but powerful impact on me and I am grateful.  Our time on this globe is brief but I swear that we can pack eternity into a single moment if we just let go and allow ourselves to experience it.

 

 

This is not the first time that I have experienced such moments but this is the first time that I have written about one.  In writing about this I came to realize what had occurred.  I had undergone a ‘peak experience.’  The famed psychologist Abraham Maslow was one of the first scientific minds to study this phenomena.  Here is one definition of peak experiences:

 

 

Peak experiences are described by Maslow as especially joyous and exciting moments in life, involving sudden feelings of intense happiness and well-being, wonder and awe, and possibly also involving an awareness of transcendental unity or knowledge of higher truth (as though perceiving the world from an altered, and often vastly profound and awe-inspiring perspective).

 

 

The realization took me by surprise.  I had known about such events, especially those of the successful people that Maslow and others had studied.  Yet I did not immediately recognize these events in my own life as peak experiences.

 

 

Maslow believed that peak experiences were beneficial in our efforts toward self-actualization.  In Maslow’s research of people who were mature and psychologically healthy he found that peak experiences played a strong role in their lives.  To me, that simply meant that this experience was validation that I am on the right path towards becoming who I am meant to be.  In short, it was further evidence of ongoing success.

 

 

Maslow so believed in the importance of peak experience that he began to teach classes that aimed to help people to obtain them.  Maslow felt that our success in life itself could be measured by the frequency of these events. For this reason, I likewise encourage you to develop the conditions that will produce an environment where such events can more readily occur.  Here is a list of actions that Maslow himself proposed to help people on their own path towards peak experiences and self-actualization:

• Experience life like a child, with full absorption and concentration;
• Try new things instead of sticking to safe paths;
• Listen to your own feelings in evaluating experiences instead of the voice of tradition, authority or the majority;
• Avoid pretense ('game playing') and being honest;
• Be prepared to be unpopular if your views do not coincide with those of the majority;
• Take responsibility and work hard;
• Try to identify your defenses and have the courage to give them up.

I personally can say that my peak moments have always occurred when I was truly in the present moment with no cares for the past or anticipation of the future – a child-like state.  My inner voice was utterly silent; the dialogue had stopped. 

I have described to you one of my perfect moments.  It is my hope that you find your own ways that help you to experience such times of clarity and joy.  Maslow himself believed that peak experiences did not require mediation or esoteric practices.  Perfect moments are all around us and available in the here and now.  With that in mind I’d like to close with Abraham Maslow’s very words on the experience of peak moments:

“The sacred is in the ordinary...it is to be found in one's daily life, in one's neighbors, friends, and family, in one's own backyard...travel may be a flight from confronting the sacred — this lesson can be easily lost. To be looking elsewhere for miracles is to me a sure sign of ignorance that everything is miraculous.” — Abraham Maslow