The job of our lifetime

Carl Jung wrote; 'The first half of life is devoted to forming a healthy ego, the second half is going inward and letting go of it'. Or I have heard it expressed as: 'dissolving the ego is the job of our lifetime'.

Terry Johnson, the British playwright, once said, 'All good plays are broken-backed'. What he meant by this is that the playwright has an idea of how the play will be but during the writing process the characters take over and the playwright realises it cannot be as he or she had intended so they then have to get out of their own way, let go and let the characters and the situation play out naturally. If they don't, the play may sort of work but it won't be good because it will have an ending that doesn't ring true because it has been forced upon it. In other words, the playwright letting go of their ideas, their ego, is an essential part of the writing process. Jung is basically saying the same thing is true of us. I would perhaps say it is an essential part of leading a good life. Whenever we relax our ego we allow ourselves to discover new things and new aspects of ourselves that we would never have contemplated before. It is a trusting, and acceptance, that there is more to us than who we think we are and by actively exploring what that 'more' is we bring a whole new perspective to our lives which leads us to new understandings and accomplishments.

If we don't do this we continue to be caught up in the trappings of ego which mean that we remain concerned with the same things we were concerned about when we were younger, we don't develop sufficiently to deal with the challenges we will face as we progress through life and, as a result, there is often a lot of unhappiness. The paradox is that we cling on to our ideas when in fact it is precisely those ideas that cause so much of our suffering.