We are not meant to be well-balanced, sober servants of collective values…

We are not meant to be well-balanced, sober servants of collective values. We are not meant to be sane, safe or similar. We are, each of us, meant to be different. A proper course of therapy does not make us better adjusted; it makes us more eccentric, a unique individual who serves a larger project than that of the ego or the collective norms.

The shape and character of our vocation [which means, calling in Latin] may change at different developmental stages. We have not just one life, but many lives to live, and in the course of however long we are privileged to live, many tasks, many vocations.

Personality, or personhood as Jung might define it, is not found in adjustment to external expectations, but in serving one’s calling in the context of our environment. This may bring one to an individual experience of being ‘misjudged, derided, tortured, and crucified.’

No wonder vocation is seldom served. And yet, and yet, something in us always knows better. Something in us, no matter how much we flee it, summons us. We may avoid it all our lives, but deep down, something knows. It knows us whether we wish to know it or not. There is no escape from this knowing though much of contemporary Western culture is a flight from knowing what, inescapably, we already know.

We will be most nearly real when we serve our vocation. We will not be spared suffering, but we will be granted a deeply felt sense that our life is right, even when suffering isolation and rejection.

That deeply felt sense of what is right for us… is how we can find it is we are to do with this precious and fragile gift of life and transcendent reality we are summoned to serve. This sacrifice of the ego will constitute our greatest gift to the world.

The sacrifice of collective acceptance, which individuation demands, is redeemed by our bringing a larger person back to the world, to our relationships and to our dialogue with mystery.”

– James Hollis from, Creating a Life: Finding Your Individual Path