In the place your actually find yourself

Sōichirō Tomioka, Trees, 1961.

 

NYer review of Oliver Burkeman's new book - Meditations for Mortals.

Burkeman thinks that it’s possible to scale back at the highest level, too, by thinking differently about what you should be doing with your life as a whole. He tells a story about Carl Jung, who, as a teen-ager, suffered from fainting spells and couldn’t focus on his studies. One day, Jung overheard his father lamenting his son’s condition: the family didn’t have much money, his father said, and he worried about how his son would support himself. The boy felt a sudden clarity: it was obvious that he should devote himself to succeeding at school. This, Jung later wrote, was his “life task” at that time. Your life task, Burkeman explains, is what emerges at the intersection of your circumstances and your abilities. “Never mind what you want. What does life want?” he asks.

A life task is less exalted, and more grounded, than your “calling” or your “destiny.” You may dream of becoming a director or a C.E.O. But, “if you only have a hundred dollars in the bank, your life task won’t require the immediate purchase of thousands of dollars’ worth of moviemaking equipment,” Burkeman writes. “If you’re the single parent of three small children, it won’t involve working eighteen-hour days for a tech start-up.” Your life task, right now, might be smaller and more obvious—writing a song, raising a child, getting a new job, or continuing in the one you have. Think of the contribution you can make “in the place where you actually find yourself,” Burkeman suggests.