Adaptive Freedom

You can get a very clear view of yourself through the helpful feedback of those who are close to you. Therefore, the hopes and vision you cherish for the growth of your authentic personality will be worked over and refined in the conscious and nonconscious interchange with your partner and theirs with you. But that vision must always be on your own terms, not theirs. 

The Age Of Absurdity: Why Modern Life Makes It Hard To Be Happy by Michael Foley

My rating and Review at Goodreads:

4 of 5 stars

This is a sharp, witty, highly intelligent and really quite brilliant book. Foley reminds us that our yearning for authenticity is not found only in novelty—a new place, a new lover, a new job: “More effective is to see the familiar with new eyes . . . to smash the crust of habit and see life anew.” He exhorts us to “begin a new job in your current post, enjoy a holiday where you actually live, and most thrillingly, plunge into a tumultuous affair with your own spouse.” (139)

The book is full of nuggets of learned information and wonderful quotes such as “understanding is itself transformation” (24). It is packed with impressive research into psychology and a review of the broad sweep of philosophy from the Stoics to Rousseau and much in between and beyond.

The style is easy flowing, lucid and full of distilled and simple but profound wisdom. Ideal for scholars, searchers and interested readers. This will become a classic!

How young do you need to be to start living authentically? It sounds like a stupid question. Surely you should be living authentically all your life. Well that depends on whether you are allowed to or not. The case of the 16 year old Dutch girl Laura Dekker highlights this issue. Ever since she was a toddler she wanted to sail alone around the world. This was no pipe dream. Laura was born on a yacht during her parents seven year round the world voyage before their divorce. She was more comfortable on a boat than on dry land so her dream was grounded in practical reality.
When she was 13 she took her fathers yacht and sailed it single handed from Holland to England encountering bad weather but arriving safely. Her reward was to be arrested by the British police. When she announced that she would sail around the world on her own the Dutch authorities made her a ward of the State and forbade her to sail. Her mother was vehemently against the plan but her father, at first reluctant, eventually supported her. With the help of a friendly lawyer they beat the Dutch authorities and Laura completed her 518 day solo voyage sound the world (the youngest person ever at 16) when she landed at the Caribbean island of St Maarten in January 2012.
This remarkable story told in The Sunday Times highlights the courage and tenacity required in Being You – becoming and remaining truly authentic. Laura’s journey told with elegant simplicity on her blog is summed up in her own words: “I did it just for myself.”
Her experience neatly follows the structure of the 7 Pillars of the Freedom Code – the implementation path of Adaptive Freedom. Laura was acutely attentive and aware of her needs and what she wanted to achieve (1. Perceptive Awareness). This included conscious attention while on board. She wrote: “In tricky moments, such as stormy weather, I just focus on what needs to be done to control the situation, step by step.”
She was clearly aligned in mind and body with the elemental forces that contrived to bring her dream to reality (2. Alignment with Universal Energy). To fulfil your potential requires more than just dreaming: it must be backed up with concrete plans, detailed preparation and action (3. Pursue Purposive Action).
Though alone she remained in constant contact with her family, friends and supporters, and felt deeply connected to them despite the distance. She was also intimately connected with the sun, wind and sea and all the creatures around her – not to mention her closest companion, her boat ‘Guppy’ (4. Connect and Communicate).
Laura has a strong acceptance of her self, her life and her moment in that life. However, she has not so far been able to accept the way she was treated by Dutch officialdom though she has been reconciled again with her mother (5. Acceptance). To be a solo circumnavigator on a small yacht requires a ready willingness to adapt to change at every opportunity (6. Adaptability) and her blog is full of the delight she found in every day at sea—even doing her school work (7. Animation and Appreciation). She wrote “I look back with joy at the adventures of the past year.
Read Laura’s Blog

Adaptive Freedom and the power of living authentically requires becoming better at managing change. The 6th Pillar of the Freedom Code – Become Adaptable - deals a lot with this idea. As we embrace change and start living more on the edge of life we begin to perform better. So thinks the psychologist Tony Bates. In a moving article on depression in The Irish Times http://bit.ly/itbates he writes “Staying within your comfort zone is safe, but it can lack vitality. Moving towards the edge of the unknown, that’s where we become creative. Those edges bring out in us our resilience. Until we have our hand near the fire, we don’t learn how to manage fire, even though we can write books about it forever.”

The philosophy of Adaptive Freedom highlights seven Qualities of Authenticity. The sixth is Competence:
The quality of competence is a belief that you have the skills and knowledge to live effectively. It includes becoming comfortable with uncertainty. Competence implies the capacity to adapt to changing circumstances, and the ability to find an effective balance within the varying demands of life. It entails being a good learner of life’s lessons, being open to experience, reality-centered, problem-centered, and creatively minded. Above all competence implies the ability to manage your emotions and behavior and not be the victim of automatic and unskilful conditioned responses.
Each of the 7 Qualities of Authenticity is linked to one of the 7 Pillars of the Freedom Code. Competence is linked to the 6th Pillar: Become Adaptable.