“Your life has many outer, earthly purposes: the demands of your job, supporting your family, achieving financial stability. Outer purposes are important and necessary, but they are also impermanent, relative, and constantly shifting. In the second half of life it is not so much what you do that matters; it is the level of consciousness that you bring to your doing.”
This quote is from the book Living Your Unlived Life by Jungian psychotherapists and authors Robert A. Johnson and Jerry M. Ruhl.
Much of that which we do are the basic tasks of adulthood: getting our education or training for an occupation; doing that work, including traveling to and from; if we have children, spending time with them, helping them with school work, going to their activities; and for some of us, volunteering. In addition, there are the routine but essential tasks of buying groceries, making meals, maintaining our home, yard, vehicle, and so on. And hopefully there is some time to pursue personal interests too. There’s a lot that fills our days.
As the authors point out, our day-to-day responsibilities and activities definitely matter. But they are only part of what matters. When we continue, especially as we reach middle age and beyond, to give attention to and place value on our external activities without in addition growing in consciousness, we are living in a very limited way. I’m reminded of people who are well known for having been successful in certain endeavors, but who we learn from news stories or biographies struggle with depression or anxiety, have addiction problems, or in other ways show that the outer success doesn’t mean the person is emotionally healthy, fulfilled, and grounded.
There are also people who have had outer success and who have grown in consciousness as well. Generally, these people recognize that their achievements resulted from many factors. They realize that they were fortunate to have certain natural abilities and aptitudes, that there were people in their lives who had a positive influence on them, and that they were at the right place at the right time, so to speak. Sincerely acknowledging that it is not just our own ideas and efforts that have brought about accomplishments is a sign of being a more conscious person. We deserve credit for our ideas and hard work too, but that’s not the full picture. And of course we don’t have to be well known to have a sense of success and fulfillment.
As we grow in consciousness we are better able to make the decisions we should make, decisions that are based on inner direction rather than societal pressures. We are also better able to notice when projection might have occurred and to learn about ourselves from it. And we are more able to discern changes we need to make in order to better follow our path. Growing in consciousness also requires facing challenges with courage and perseverance, by trying to follow inner direction in how to deal with those challenges.
By recognizing the importance of becoming more conscious persons, we are able, as the authors say, to bring that level of consciousness to whatever we are doing, adding to a sense of fulfillment, meaning, and gratitude.