What does life want from me?
“The urge to become what one is is invincibly strong, and you can always count on it, but that does not mean that things will necessarily turn out positively. If you are not interested in your own fate, the unconscious is.” – Carl Jung
Adult life is frequently disappointing. Sure, you can eat dessert first, stay up as late as you want, and drive a car but don’t we all come to the realization that adult bodies don’t always handle dessert well, mostly we’re tired even when we go to bed at 9pm, and cars lead to traffic, road rage, and expensive upkeep. It can be hard not to get bogged down in what “isn’t” and live an intentional life.
I was reading an article this morning that mentioned Carl Jung’s flipped concept of life’s meaning: instead of asking what you want from life, rather ask what does life want from me? What is trying to come into being through me? Thinking about it, I was stopped in my tracks for a long moment. I mean, I do often think about the above-mentioned “isn’t” aspects of my life: I’m not where I want to be financially, physically, professionally, as a friend, etc. It’s a long laundry list, y’all. And I use it to beat myself up more often than not. But even as I’m trying to make 2018 my intentional year I can honestly say I haven’t thought about meaning in my life precisely that way.
So how do I think about this idea? I find that, on initial consideration at least, I’m looking at the things I most desire to do but most often shut down – and most of those things are creative, the one I shut down the most is writing. I’m also thinking about the things that happen, the roles I play, no matter what I’m “actually” doing in a moment: acting as teacher and counselor, telling stories, listening, trying to facilitate keeping people engaged. I do these things at my home, with my friends, in my professional life, with strangers in a crowd. Clearly these things are touchstones for me, maybe it’s time for me to explore them more deeply – to be intentional about how these issues present in my life and consider what they might imply about what is trying to come into being through me.
And I definitely need to go brush up on Jung.
(c) Regan Wann 2018
