My uncle passed recently as did my mother-in-law, and at my age
I realize that I am faced with more of my peers dying. We are born, we live, we die. Nature
is consistent in this fact: 100% of us die.
Jung said that:“Life meaning among the young is framed by
styles of appearance, language, material acquisitions, and social affiliations
in the quest for a solid footing in the external world...
“However, the search
for life meaning undergoes a major shift in the second half of life. Whatever
people’s material success, many find less and less meaning from “things.” So,
they begin to look inward rather than to the outer world in their search for
life meaning.”
We
don’t know how long we have on this planet, but we do know this, we
exist on this earth for some undetermined period of time. During that time we
do things. Some of these things are important. Some of them are unimportant.
And those important things give our lives meaning and happiness.
Humans are
storytellers, we seek out patterns, we look for a narrative so it is reasonable
to ask “What should I do with my life?” or “What is my life purpose?” Jung
address this in his sixth task of aging, although many ask the question of
themselves when they were younger.
However, we all have
a tendency to lose touch with what we thought, loved and asked ourselves when
we were a child. Something about the social pressures of adolescence and
professional pressures of young adulthood squeezes the passion out of us. We’re
taught that the only reason to do something is if we’re somehow rewarded for it.
Life has meaning for us when we
discover what we are passionate about. One way to do this is to think
about what you would do, if there were no useless websites, no Facebook, no
video games, no TV, where would you go and what would you do?
Would you sign up for
a dance class? Join a book club? Go get another degree? Invent a new form of
irrigation system that can save the thousands of children’s lives in rural
Africa? Learn to hang glide?
Maybe, you will do
some of these, maybe not, what we are asking is: “What can you do with your
time that is important? You define important, and when you do, you are in fact deciding what
your legacy will be when you finally die.
So what is your legacy going to
be? What are the stories people are going to tell when you’re gone? What is
your obituary going to say? Is there anything to say at all? If not, what would
you like it to say? Why and how can you start working towards being the person; you want to be remembered as today?
When people feel like they have
no sense of direction, no purpose in their life, it’s because they don’t know
what’s important to them, they don’t know what their values are.
And when you don’t know what your
values are, then you’re essentially taking on other people’s values and living
other people’s priorities instead of your own.
Discovering one’s
“purpose” in life essentially boils down to finding those one or two things
that are bigger than yourself, and bigger than those around you.
And to find them you
must get off your couch and act, and take the time to think beyond yourself, to
think greater than yourself, and paradoxically, to imagine a world without
yourself. As we age we are moving closer to that world, so my advice is to act
now.
No comments:
Post a Comment