This is probably one of the more important pages I have ever read.
Carl Jung at 84, one year from his death. “One cannot do more than live what one really is.” Jung is saying there is no level above being yourself. And being yourself might be the hardest thing of all. Because it means living in truth with what you actually are, including your tensions, contradictions, limitations, instincts, and complexity.
Too often people are trying to become more than themselves, when the people who seem most deeply satisfied in life have usually become more of themselves. More in tune with their own nature. More willing to live their life their way.
Jung believed most of our troubles come when we have lost contact with our guiding instincts… I think that’s true. I’m still waiting to find someone deeply satisfied in life who is disconnected from themselves, abandoning their own nature, and living someone else’s script. Acceptance of oneself is the essence of the moral problem and the acid test of one’s whole outlook on life. This page also says that suffering is unavoidable. This is necessary suffering. Life will bring pain and heartbreak.
Uncertainty is unavoidable. Grief will show up at your door when you least expect it. Hard decisions will come.
But there is also unnecessary suffering, the suffering that comes from resisting what is happening, refusing what life is asking of you, or not living true to yourself. That type of suffering seems to eat at your soul.
I have come to the conclusion that it is better to Live what one really is and accept the difficulties that arise as a result – because avoidance is much worse. Better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to perform an imitation of someone else’s life perfectly. You can contort yourself, wear every mask, and distract yourself, but eventually you will need to answer, Am I really living life my way?
canisgallicus 