A Gift From My Friend.

a dear friend of mine sometimes sends me gems….that make me think, feel and pay attention in a different way.

this is one gift that he sent to me…and one of many that are worth sharing.

“What is it, in the end, that induces a man to go his own way and to rise

out of unconscious identity with the mass as out of a swathing mist? Not

necessity, for necessity comes to many, and they all take refuge in

convention. Not moral decision, for nine times out of ten we decide for

convention likewise. What is it, then, that inexorably tips the scales in

favor of the extra-ordinary?

It is what is commonly called vocation; an irrational factor that destines a

man to emancipate himself from the herd and from its well-worn paths. True

personality is always a vocation and puts its trust in it as in God, despite

it’s being, as the ordinary man would say, only a personal feeling.

But vocation acts like a law of God from which there is no escape. The fact

that many a man who goes his own way ends in ruin means nothing to one who

has a vocation. He must obey his own law, as if it were a daemon whispering

to him of new and wonderful paths. Anyone with a vocation hears the voice of

the inner man: he is called. “

Carl Jung, “The Development of Personality” The Development of Personality

Collected Works of Carl Jung, 17, pars. 299

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