This Jungian Life

The life transition we call retirement mandates a major readjustment in how time, energy and money are spent, whether retirement means becoming a “snowbird” or having a stepped-down lifestyle. Work has structured the rhythm of life and time; most have found aspects of identity, status, and socialization at work, regardless of how fulfilling, arduous or well paid it may have been. Shakespeare’s King Lear and the Greek myth of Baucis and Philemon illustrate contrasting inner attitudes and their outcomes. Jung believed that the second half of life had a prospective and healing function in the psyche. If retirement can be considered redirection, these years hold promise: life can now be oriented to internal life and meaning, especially awareness of the ego’s secondary place in relation to the Self.   Dream I am in a McDonald’s, waiting for my younger sister to collect her meal. Her order is called and we pick it up, the meal is excessive – a huge portion of chips and lots of nuggets, so I steal a chip. As she is