Crises in Endeavours

Response to Crisis

Life's challenges are met by a wide variety of endeavours, large and small. Most of them pass off virtually without being noticed, while some are evidently major. There are several different responses to crises engendered by failure, breakdown, or intense opposition in regard to meeting one of life's challenges. Albert O. Hirschman brilliantly captured these options within a group context as: Exit, Voice or Loyalty.

Healthy Responses

  • Stop & Exit
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    Accept that your efforts—the activity, the project, the community, the communication, the relationship, the contract, the inner state—are not working out as expected or hoped for. So stop and exit: cut your losses, withdraw, disconnect, move on. If appropriate, start again positively in a different way—a new activity, a new project, a new community, a new conception (understanding, finding, theory, policy), a new relationship, a new contract, a new way of equilibrating—possibly having learned something so as to avoid a repetition of the crisis.

  • Recover & Renew (R+R)
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    Refuse to accept failure, but take a step back to develop a new mindset and then introduce measures that will get the relevant area of your life back on track. This is intrinsically a severe challenge as it means sticking with the painful experience of the crisis, and often runs counter to pressures from others and possibly from your inner feelings as well. This R+R response is what is given structure by the emergent Tree frameworks.

  • Endure & Hope
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    Circumstances may be such that rather little can be done. You can neither disconnect, nor can you fix matters. However, you can envisage a time (perhaps far distant) when one or other of these options will become possible. So you persist. While enduring and persisting, it is important to maintain a positive attitude. In such situations, gratifications may be sought in other areas of life e.g. little achievement at work is balanced by achievement in personal hobbies or family life.

Unhealthy Response

  • Embrace Dysfunction
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    Healthy responses are all creative and flexible. Negatively-toned endurance that does not envisage an end is self-destructive, rigid and unhealthy. If you find yourself responding like this, then you are likely to disconnect mentally, complain or grumble, become bitter, feel entitled and envious, and/or project blame. This can make you physically ill.

Endeavour-Proper & Recover+Renew Efforts

The difference between «endeavours-proper» and «recovery + renewal efforts» is to be found in the relation between a person and their environment. In endeavours-proper, we must accept that the environment is generally more powerful than the person.

«Environment» refers here to Closed both what is external and impersonal (e.g. wider society, technology, physical environment) and what is internal and personal (e.g. past experience, ignorance, mood).

In R+R efforts, we deal with the special situation in which a person wilfully opposes the forces exerted by their environment. So R+R efforts are not a form of endeavour-proper. They are rather dynamic transcendental states using our mental capacities which support endeavours-proper by re-articulating their nature and organizing their reconstruction in a creative way.

In practice, these R+R efforts are entangled with features of endeavours-proper, which continue alongside and require continuing inputs and interactions, social and physical. The R+R effort (if handled well) enables the related endeavours-proper to be more effectively pursued and successfully realized.

Eventually, as the situation resolves, R+R can be wound down. But some creative individuals maintain such efforts over long periods of time to good effect.

Forms of Endeavour-Proper

Each life challenge has typical endeavours-proper that it demands, as shown in this Matrix.

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Life Challenge Typical Endeavours-Proper R+R Effort Framework
Use Time
Well 		Handling minor everyday tasks intrinsic to living, like it or not. Preparatory efforts for new goals. Overcoming inertia
so as to
stop the avoidance.		 Tree of PH-L1s
from PH5-Communication
Produce Achievements Completing projects. Developing a business. Implementing work plans. Reaching major goals. Refusing to give up
so as to
make a project succeed.		 Tree of PH-L2s
from PH1-Action
Provide Useful Accounts Writing reports. Giving feedback. Producing policies and proposals. Developing scenarios, theories and frameworks. Bypassing social resistance
so as to
establish ideas as sound.		 Tree of PH-L3s
from PH7-Willingness
Sustain Group Cohesion Social activities, formal and informal, that enable harmonious contact and belonging. Reducing intra-group conflict
so as to
restore social harmony.		 Tree of PH-L4s
from PH2-Inquiry
Handle Close Relationships Activities that sustain an ongoing relationship, or that are agreed to meet wishes within the relationship. Resolving interpersonal differences
so as to
affirm a solid bond.		 Tree of PH-L5s
from PH4-Experience
Work for Another Work within a role or team. Managing a subordinate. Reporting to a boss. Executing a commission. Asserting expectations
so as to
design better arrangements.		 Tree of PH-L6s
from PH6-Purpose
Maintain Equilibrium Adapting to changing circumstances; activities aimed at feeling good, effective, appreciated, safe, loved &c. Allowing self recovery
so as to
repair psychic damage.		 Tree of PH-L7s
from PH3-Change

Originally posted: 20-Sep-2013. Last amended: 30-Dec-2022.