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During this past week I did thirty some radio interviews in connection with this book What Matters Most.  Many of the hosts made the obvious point that it was the first full week of the new year and for many is a time for resolutions.  And a few further observed that a book that raises questions about what matters most is also arriving at a timely moment when our national life seems also so vexed, so confused, and so disappointing.  

 Is it not noteworthy that periodically we reexamine our lives and vow to live them differently?  While we may be deeply in pain at the moment, or dealing with some consequence which has washed up on our shores, even more, are we not at those moments already in contact, however fleetingly, with something within that wishes to live more fully in the world?  What is it that has brings people into analysis?  Is it only suffering, powerful as that may be, or is it also that we intuit something which wishes fuller expression than we have allowed until now?   Jung wrote once that every therapist should ask, "what is this person's neurosis allowing him or her to avoid"?   He also observed that, deep down, everyone who came to him "knew" what it was they needed to do with their life.  I am inclined to concur even as we acknowledge that often we do not know what we already know.   But something in us always knows, and is always wishing to break through our resistance into the world through the choices we make, the lives we construct.

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What Matters Most: Living a More Considered Life is a kind of summing up, reflecting not only aspects of my personal journey, but some of the stories I have seen and witnessed as an analyst for many years. Analytic work is most humbling for a number of reasons. First, we cannot “fix” any other, solve their problem, cure them. We cannot even fix ourselves. And the human condition is not a disease, despite one ancient who said that life is a disease, the cure for which is death. Second, it is a privilege to attend the unfolding story of another human being, and to learn that for all our limitations, something healing generally arises out of these most intimate conversations. Third, as both analyst and analysand share the same condition, albeit with different journeys, we are mutually humbled by the powers of the invisible world to guide, shape, wound, and govern for good or ill, the visible world. Perhaps my life journey could best be summarized as a well-intended bumbling in the world on a daily basis, yet a consistent, life-long desire to discern the invisible world through the lineaments of the visible.

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It is no coincidence that the great moral teachers—Socrates, Plato, Jesus, the Rabbis, the Zen masters—taught best through story and parable, for stories bring tangible form to elusive, fugitive truths. What would only be ghostly cerements otherwise, the lingering traces of the passing gods, can, embodied, present themselves to our conscious minds, and thereby become ours.

We all have stories. There are the stories we tell ourselves and others, which we believe to be true. There are stories we tell ourselves and others, which are not true, whatever our belief in them. There are stories that “tell us into the world” on a daily basis, but we do not know them, nor even surmise their presence. The problem with the unconscious is that it is unconscious.

Of these unconscious narratives, we can, by definition, say nothing at all. But we intuit their presence, posit their possibility, through our observations of others, and of ourselves. What, after all, is generating those patterns which characterize our history? What, but the presence of unconscious stories to which our tribe, our ancestors, our culture, are in service?

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James Hollis is one of our guest bloggers during the week of January 12th. If you have any questions for James Hollis, add a comment to any of his posts. Here is some more information about What Matters Most.

The celebrated author of Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life delivers a unique look at happiness, sharing a Jungian approach to finding a fearless, authentic path.

Why are we here? What is the meaning of existence? What truly matters the most in life? To even begin to answer these questions, we must start by exploring our own internal ideals, values, and beliefs. Presenting the unique perspective of respected analyst and author James Hollis, Ph.D., What Matters Most helps readers learn to appreciate (even be amazed by) events unfolding within, even as the external world creates constant struggles.