True Self

When a man acts in accordance with social norm to boost his ego or to gain social standing even though he feels such acts are against his inner nature, he is being egoistic and is moving away from his individuation. Individuation is being the unique individual that one is or in other words being oneself. Carl Jung is of the view that individuation is necessary for the holistic development of a person and to be free from complexes.

"Here one may ask, perhaps, why it is so desirable that a man should be individuated. Not only is it desirable, it is absolutely indispensable, because, through his contamination with others, he falls into situations and commits actions which bring him into disharmony with himself. From all states of unconscious contamination... there is begotten a compulsion to be and to act in a way contrary to one’s own nature. Accordingly a man can neither be at one with himself nor accept responsibility for himself. He feels himself to be in a degrading, unfree, unethical condition. But the disharmony with himself is precisely the neurotic and intolerable condition from which he seeks to be delivered, and deliverance from this condition will come only when he can be and act as he feels is comfortable with his true self. People have a feeling for these things, dim and uncertain at first, but growing ever stronger and clearer with progressive development. When a man can say of his states and actions, ‘As I am, so I act,’ he can be at one with himself, even though it be difficult, and he can accept responsibility for himself even though he struggle against it. We must recognize that nothing is more difficult to bear than oneself."-Carl Jung

The last sentence of the paragraph above connects me to what I read about Kyudo, the Japanese art of archery, "the archer's selfish attachment to the target, which is the source of mental agitation, must be faced squarely and overcome....The confrontation with the target is thus the confrontation with one's own mind".
"It aims at surpassing oneself, the target and the bow in order to reach one's true self".

In my own experience the need for individuation grows stronger towards the second half of one's life although many people do feel the need much earlier in life. It may explain for the discontentment one feels with one's life as if something is missing. This may account for many a mid career change or spiritual pursuits. In the case where such needs are projected onto external objects they may surface in the form of addictions like engagement with fast cars or young sexual partners etc. A therapist was once asked by a prominent client as to whether he should leave his wife and family for a young and vivacious lady he was having an affair with. The therapist suggested that the client reflect upon the characteristics of his mistress which he was in love with; and consider whether the same characteristics may represent some aspects of his inner self which had been suppressed by his ego all those years. Example of such could be the free spiritedness or creativity of youth which were sacrificed for career advancement.

Perhaps one should not wait for the discontentment to snowball to such a magnitude resulting in the need for a radical shift in lifestyle. Acquiring an awareness of one's true nature and aiming to be authentic to one self along the way will guide one to act in such a way as to bring about harmony. For example a person whose circumstances make it impossible for him to pursue an artistic career (which is his innate wish) can pursue art as a hobby and consciously make time to develop it.

A 70 year old lady once lamented that she could not fulfil her lifelong wish to sky dive. Her therapist suggested that she applied her imagination in the form of symbols or looked for a substitute activity that embodied the thrill and risk taking spirit she had so wished but denied. I guess we should not wait till we are 70 to draw a long list of what we have missed in the "unlived life".