Quotes about Tension

The tension exists because you are doing the difficult work of no longer cooperating with dysfunction.

Over the years I've grown more comfortable with making people uncomfortable because that is when growth can happen. You need a little conflict. You need a little tension. And that is part of my calling. A little tough love goes a long way!

I am tired of a life of contention, and of being the personal object for the hatred of every man, who hates the present state of things.

Wars are, of course, as a rule to be avoided but they are far better than certain kinds of peace.

Confrontation makes me nervous.

I consider it a dangerous misconception of mental hygiene to assume that what man needs in the first place is equilibrium or, as it is called in biology, "homeostasis," i.e., a tensionless state. What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him.

To be sure, man's search for meaning may arouse inner tension rather than inner equilibrium. However, precisely such tension is an indispensable prerequisite of mental health.

So if therapists wish to foster their patients' mental health, they should not be afraid to create a sound amount of tension through a reorientation toward the meaning of one's life.

Thus it can be seen that mental health is based on a certain degree of tension, the tension between what one has already achieved and what one still ought to accomplish, or the gap between what one is and what one should become. Such a tension is inherent in the human being and therefore is indispensable to mental well-being.

Thus it can be seen that mental health is based on a certain degree of tension, the tension between what one is and what one should become. Such a tension is inherent in the human being and therefore is indispensable to mental well-being. We should not, then, be hesitant about challenging man with a potential meaning for him to fulfill. It is only thus that we evoke his will to meaning from its state of latency.

Tension, striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal are positive; trying to close the gap between what one is and what one should become.

Invisible insects of diabolical activity swarm in this place. I am tickled and twitched all over. Mentally, I have now committed a burglary under the meanest circumstances, and the myrmidons of justice are at my heels.