“…The strong man holds in a living blend strongly marked opposites. Not ordinarily do men achieve this balance of opposites. The idealists are not usually realistic, and the realists are not usually idealistic. The militants are not generally known to be passive, nor the passive to be militant. Seldom are the humble self assertive or the self assertive humble. But life at its best is a creative syntheses of opposites in fruitful harmony…. truth is found neither in the thesis nor the antithesis, but in the an emerging synthesis which reconciles the two.

The work world knows all about competence. Most evaluations and rewards are determined by a person’s competence. Vocational guidance emphasizes it in testing which areas of work one would be most competent in. Transfers and promotions are based upon competence. In business and the professions, you get in and get ahead by demonstrating your competence. But somewhere along the way—as early as thirty-five for some people, but as late as fifty-five for others—competence begins to lose its force as a source of motivation.