Apparently at some point in his life Carl Jung said or wrote, “The first half of life is devoted to forming a healthy ego, the second half is going inward and letting go of it.”
And so it is with Householders’ Gazette. I’m in mid-life, I have children, a mortgage, and stunningly but not surprisingly in today’s world, I have no job. Having been cut from Salesforce in February of ’23 and then finding monthly contract work from June of ’23 with RapidSOS until March of this year, 2024, I’ve had just enough money to live, think, feel, and explore what my next chapter would be and be about.
I was struggling for clarity on that finer point, though, until earlier this summer.
My 16 yr old daughter had performed a moving solo piece of her own design at her end-of-year dance performance at her arts-based-curriculum high school. It challenged me as an adult human to be better than I have been. How?
With all the blathering that parents can do about kids’ ‘being their best’ and ’living without fear’ and tropes of that stripe, I had been ‘guilty’ of working the last ten years or more at a job I wasn’t really invested in and had ‘settled’ for the reality of paying the bills, acquiring some stuff and the like. Who was I to instruct my daughter on the possibilities of life? why should she listen to me? I’m telling, but am I showing?
Summer started with a little cloud over my head as I woke each day. It chanted: What now? What’s my path? What good example do I strive to show? From what authenticity can I exercise authority?
It challenged me to step up: Who are you and what are you going to do about it?
So it is that next week I enter a Master’s program at the University of San Francisco to study psychology and ultimately earn licensure to practice therapy, and more. My kids don’t really know what to do with that, my ex-wife is a little perplexed but supportive, and the work (and cost!) ahead will be challenging, but it will also open up new dimensions, horizons, and opportunities to deepen my own human experience. I’m thrilled.
Getting back to Jung…I am fortunate to have built a healthy ego. An ego that informs, deepens, and amplifies many of the lessons I’m about to learn. And it will be work in which I no longer grasp onto the ego, but must surrender to if I am to be of any use, which is all I’ve ever really wanted to be.
Doing this will be patina on my life, so that my daughters can see ‘successful living,’ and hopefully help people in darkness shine, as I take the shine off of myself.
KOAN #4
This or next weekend, open a lemonade stand with some kids.
I exercise no influence or discretion on the koans I pull from the deck, so this one strikes me as borderline hilarious. All I can say is, you’re going to learn something from the process of making a batch of the drink, putting up a table, lettering a sign, making change, etc. Just do it because it will be fun, and if you go to a workplace come Monday, you’ll have a winning story to tell.