What is the first word you think of when you hear the word ‘defiance?’ What pops up for me is ‘authority,’ as in defiance of authority.
Frankl used the word very differently. Defiance is perhaps the most precious human power.
Why do we need it? We all have our limitations. One person is limited physically, another mentally and a third emotionally. No one is all-powerful.
Yet, each of us has the power to defy. We can defy social pressures. We can defy our instincts. We can defy physical disabilities.
We are often limited by our expectations more than we are limited by real barriers. We expect someone who was abused to grow up to be an abusive parent. We expect someone who is mentally disabled to forever be illiterate.
Hence, “so long as a person makes the mistake of reminding himself constantly, before making an effort, that the effort may fail, he is not likely to succeed – if only because he does not like to disprove his own expectations.” (The Doctor and the Soul, p. 86)
Yet, there always remains a scope of unpredictability. Frankl calls this unpredictable quality the defiant power of the human spirit. The defiant power is manifest time and time again. We see it in the courage of someone who lost the ability to walk and had to learn to walk all over again. We see it in the person who, determined to follow his dream started a new organization at the age of 85. We see it every day, in a million and one ways.
The source for the defiant power is the ‘will.’ As Frankl writes, “The instincts only make proposals, so to speak, while the ego decides what to do about these proposals. The ego can decide – resolve, freely choose; the ego ‘wills.’ And it does so independently of where the id “drives” it.” (The Doctor and the Soul, p. 85)
The deep will that resides in the spirit over-rides all of the little wants of the psyche. The will is not daunted by limitations.
Limitations only define boundaries. They don’t dictate what we want. They sharpen our creative ingenuity for figuring out how to do what we want.