It is very easy, given the reach and impact of celebrity and social media culture, to spend our lives wishing we were someone else. If only, we feel, we were taller, richer, more famous or more beautiful, then our lives wold suddenly work!
In today’s message I share a powerful insight from Carl Jung who reminds us all that the essentially task of our lives is to become most fully who we were created to become.
Grab a free copy of my book Bridging the Gap here:
https://go.jonathandoyle.co/btg-pdf
Transcript
Hi guys, Jonathan Doyle with you again, welcome to the daily message.
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Speaker:We are going to talk about a great quote from the super famous founder of the
Speaker:second Viennese school of psychotherapy.
Speaker:I'm your trivia guy, right?
Speaker:Like if there's a trivia night, Because I know things like this, right?
Speaker:The first Viennese school you've got Freud, the second Viennese school,
Speaker:you've got Carl Young, the third Viennese school of psychotherapy.
Speaker:You got people like, um, Victor Franco.
Speaker:So the second VNS score, we got Carl Young.
Speaker:I like how young, just, wow.
Speaker:What a full life.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:Like what a guy who just, he went deep, deep into mythology, symbolic.
Speaker:Well, anyway, let's get to it.
Speaker:Let's talk about car young.
Speaker:Do not compare, do not measure no other way is like yours.
Speaker:All other ways, deceive and tempt.
Speaker:You, you must fulfill the way that is in you.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:This one's personal for me.
Speaker:I don't know if you've done this, but I spent many years of my life,
Speaker:especially when I was younger, trying to be something that I was.
Speaker:I remember as a kid, my mother was used to say to me, be
Speaker:yourself, stop acting differently.
Speaker:You know, I remember definitely as a teenager, I just desperately wanted
Speaker:it to be cool or tough or whatever.
Speaker:You know, sport was a big thing.
Speaker:I had this real struggle with being myself, you know, and I, and I
Speaker:wouldn't say that I'm fully there.
Speaker:I'm better now that I've gotten older, but I've always struggle.
Speaker:Just, um, really just self-acceptance and just being me and doing me.
Speaker:And, uh, cause you made some people who just seem to have that master don't you.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:Some people are just so completely at home in their own skin.
Speaker:And I think for many of us it's a journey, but Carl Young is telling us here.
Speaker:One of the real dangers in life is not to do.
Speaker:You are the real dangers in life is to spend time trying to be somebody else.
Speaker:Now, first, if you think about our culture in terms of celebrity culture and social
Speaker:media, which is massively presented with these images and lives and stories.
Speaker:In fact, my daughter and I were talking about it yesterday in the
Speaker:car years ago, I had a really.
Speaker:Uh, essay around the Greek concept of dramatic persona, right.
Speaker:Of, of drama.
Speaker:Um, the Griggs kind of argued that every life carried within it, this incredible
Speaker:drama, this incredible tension that we all carry between good and evil selfishness
Speaker:and altruism, all these different forces.
Speaker:And the Greeks believed that the great battle of life was to become
Speaker:who you fully were meant to be.
Speaker:And the danger from modern celebrity culture and reality TV is that we spend
Speaker:all our time looking at the drama.
Speaker:Other people's lives.
Speaker:So we've all got this incredible drama in our own lives.
Speaker:Don't we, the drama of every single day, the drama of what you eat, whether you
Speaker:train, how you speak, what you read, whether you improve, whether you go
Speaker:backwards, whether you're gracious or whether you're selfish, there's this
Speaker:constant thing going on in all of us.
Speaker:And you always telling us that the, the purpose is to do you
Speaker:is to become fully who you are and not to become someone else.
Speaker:I'll give you an example.
Speaker:When I was finishing high school, I was obsessed with playing rugby.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Cause I had a pretty fractured sense of identity.
Speaker:Um, life was pretty difficult.
Speaker:And I found this one place where I sort of thought that I could just strive
Speaker:and struggle and get some success.
Speaker:And because it was, you know, a full contact sport, I would spend ages trying
Speaker:to get really psyched up, you know, get myself really aggressive and fire up.
Speaker:And you know, what I did the truth is that I know now.
Speaker:I'm a really gentle soul.
Speaker:I'm a highly, you're going to not believe this, but my God,
Speaker:I'm pretty highly introverted.
Speaker:I like quietness and thinking and pace.
Speaker:And I spent all this time back in high school trying to be something I wasn't.
Speaker:And what I would do is I would get out on the field and I would be overstimulated.
Speaker:I'd be massively overstimulated and took me years of reading about
Speaker:sports psychology to begin to figure.
Speaker:And I remember years later I was coaching in England and we were in the
Speaker:dressing room before a really big game.
Speaker:And I was talking all the players and I could see this one guy and everybody
Speaker:else, like, you know, I was getting really fired up and yelling at each other.
Speaker:And this one guy was looking really pile and I suddenly clicked.
Speaker:I just went, he is like me.
Speaker:He, he.
Speaker:He needs to be really calm.
Speaker:He basically needs to like, you know, put on Bob Marley music and just chill.
Speaker:And it took me years to figure that out and then to encourage people to do
Speaker:it and to let people be who they are.
Speaker:So today in this message, what I'm saying to you is if you're spending
Speaker:any time in your life wanting to be someone else or thinking that if
Speaker:you had something that they have.
Speaker:Then you would be happy.
Speaker:It's understandable, but it's problematic.
Speaker:Let's put it that way because we, I mean, if you think about it, it,
Speaker:whatever you're attracted to, in an image of another person, whether it's
Speaker:their, their wealth or their looks or their whatever, if you got it,
Speaker:you'd still have to deal with reality.
Speaker:It's still have to deal with yourself and life and everything.
Speaker:You know, I got young kids and they like to tell me about the
Speaker:alleged lack of hair that I have.
Speaker:I mean, I don't even notice.
Speaker:And if you ever meet me, don't bring this up.
Speaker:We're going to pretend I never had never mentioned it, but lately
Speaker:I've just been like, you know, this is, this is genetics, man.
Speaker:This is what it is.
Speaker:This is what I got.
Speaker:Karen loves me.
Speaker:My kids love me.
Speaker:I got good friends.
Speaker:Six self-acceptance I got to do me right.
Speaker:Sometimes I think if I had thick, wavy hair, you know, if I had like,
Speaker:you know, overlooked, like Fabio from the eighties, go look it up, then not
Speaker:be happy, but I'm like, this is me.
Speaker:This is who I am.
Speaker:This is what I got to offer.
Speaker:This is just it.
Speaker:So I hope I can give you that.
Speaker:And I hope I can just say to you today, whoever you are, whatever you're
Speaker:struggling with, this is your journey and who you are is who you've created to be.
Speaker:And that doesn't mean you get to stay here or you get to grow.
Speaker:But let's stop trying to be someone else.
Speaker:Let's stop.
Speaker:Assuming that if we had what other people had, we'd be, seismically happier.
Speaker:We'd still be us.
Speaker:And we'd still be, you know, the things that make us really
Speaker:happy, uh, contribution, love, connection, family, meaning service.
Speaker:I think those things, I think Manny and stuff's important because it can
Speaker:alleviate some of the stresses of life.
Speaker:So don't get me wrong.
Speaker:It's nice to have nice things, but the real juice of life,
Speaker:the real, you can have both.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:So you can have both.
Speaker:But the real juice of life is becoming to accept who you are
Speaker:and loving the people around you.
Speaker:I hope that's helpful.
Speaker:It's deep today.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:Please subscribe.
Speaker:Grab a free copy of bridging the gap.
Speaker:My name is Jonathan Doyle.
Speaker:I'm going to have another message for you tomorrow.
