Tuesday 4 February 2020

An Ordinary Life

I’m busy reading a thought-provoking and engrossing non-fiction book “Creating a Life: Finding Your Individual Path” by Jungian psychologist James Hollis. I’ll review it on Goodreads when I’m finished reading it but, as I start the new life that awaits, I’ve been reflecting deeply on the life Beric and I lived: constantly striving, always work before play and, yes, we both achieved much more than we’d ever hoped for in our childhood dreams.

At what cost though?

Taking the first tottering steps into a future without my beloved Beric as my anchor and my guide, I find myself without the burning fire of ambition that has for so long been my companion.

Hollis put my mind at rest: “The first half of life is usually spent in service to the world and to the development of the ego. The second half of life should be in service to the soul. Turning away from the delusion of ambition opens a free space wherein things may be done for the sake of doing them, where value is found in the value created and where meaning is the by-product of service to a vocation, not service to the ego.” (Chapter 13: The End of Ambition”)

There’s so much comfort in knowing that it’s natural to the soul’s evolutionary path that the raging fires of youth’s ambitions can mellow into a gentle flame of finding meaning by exploring the simple pleasures of an ordinary life.