3\u00a0 bar steep drop 30.16\u00a0 0mph\u00a0 NE\u00a0 windchill 3\u00a0 Samhain<\/p>\n
Waning Gibbous Moon of Long Nights<\/p>\n
My brother Mark asked me my thoughts on turning 50.\u00a0 This April 11th he has his 50th.\u00a0 By then it will be, as it always is, twelve years since I had that birthday.<\/p>\n
Twelve years ago is a long time and when I first started to answer Carl Jung came up.\u00a0 He should have, but not in the positive way I had in mind.\u00a0 I began that piece by reflecting on Jung’s notion of life’s\u00a0 two halves:\u00a0 an external, career and family half followed by an interior, reflective and calmer half.\u00a0 Hmmm.\u00a0 But that was the upbeat spin.<\/p>\n
How Jung came into my turning 50 is less philosophical.\u00a0 In 1996 I shifted my credentials from the Presybterian church to the Unitarian-Universalist.\u00a0 In 1997, my 50th year, I had to take an internship to qualify for recognition.\u00a0 I did.\u00a0 Unity Church Unitarian (no relation to the Unity movement) in St. Paul and First Unitarian in Minneapolis both offered me internships.<\/p>\n
It felt good to be wanted in a professional capacity again.\u00a0 I had given myself 5 years to make it as a writer (with no real idea what making it meant) and I failed.\u00a0 No sales.\u00a0 Not even any bites.\u00a0 Instead of the romantic I’ll stick with it no matter what I decided to go back to the trade I had learned.\u00a0 I felt a need to earn money and to have recognition as a skilled and valuable person.<\/p>\n
This whole episode was a mistake and a big one.\u00a0 I crowned it with accepting a position as minister of development at Unity, essentially a fund-raising position.\u00a0 I hate fund-raising and everything associated with it.\u00a0 But I said yes because I was asked.\u00a0 Pretty desparate.<\/p>\n
That was how Jung came in.\u00a0 Early on I could see I’d made a mistake but I needed to understand why.\u00a0 What did it mean?\u00a0 My long time analyst John Desteian, a Jungian, and I worked on it.\u00a0 In the end we decided I had regressed, rather than moved forward.\u00a0 I had regressed by returning to safe territory.\u00a0 John said that most regressions occur because we have to go back and pick up something we needed.\u00a0 In this case I needed to be reminded how much I’d wanted out of the ministry six years before and why full time ministry was a bad fit for me.<\/p>\n
It felt wonderful to leave after the fund-raising goal had been met, an increase of 10% over the prior year.\u00a0 I did it, but I did not want to do it again.<\/p>\n
I came home and save for one brief relapse when we needed money I learned my lesson.<\/p>\n
What was the lesson?\u00a0 That the world of work and achievement had come and gone in my life.\u00a0 Now I needed to pursue life itself.\u00a0 That did include writing, whether I sold anything or not.\u00a0 I have not.\u00a0 It meant I needed to face life as myself, not as a role or job holder.<\/p>\n
So, Mark, turning 50 for me meant a need to go back and relearn a lesson I had not grasped completely the first time around.\u00a0 I don’t know what turning 50 will mean for you.\u00a0 Perhaps reflecting on the expat life?\u00a0 Perhaps following some abandoned or long cherised dream?\u00a0 Maybe you’ll tell the story of South East Asia as only someone of your particular experience can.\u00a0 Who knows?\u00a0 I can tell you this.\u00a0 Pay attention to what happens around this time because it has deep meaning for the rest of your life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
3\u00a0 bar steep drop 30.16\u00a0 0mph\u00a0 NE\u00a0 windchill 3\u00a0 Samhain Waning Gibbous Moon of Long Nights My brother Mark asked me my thoughts on turning 50.\u00a0 This April 11th he has his 50th.\u00a0 By then it will be, as it always is, twelve years since I had that birthday. Twelve years ago is a long … Continue reading At 50, What Next?<\/span>