Living an Examined Life: Wisdom for the Second Half of the Journey

Living An Examined Life is compelling. I have read every book written by James Hollis, Ph.D., and they all satisfy the spirit but this one was extraordinary. Here are just some of the places that engaged me all week and continue to do so: In Chapter 4 Dr. Hollis writes “When the path we are on is right for our souls, the energy is there.” Are there any truer words? I think not and my body agrees. I felt excited to read and remember that we all have an ongoing opportunity to shout down our fears especially when they are attached to old complexes. I felt encouraged to understand more deeply how grace transforms when one least expects it and how the soul never fails to point us in the right direction to live our “own” lives and not another person's idea of what that means. I also heard his gentle warning of the consequences to our soul when we ignore, deny or dismiss its bidding. The chapters - in this 21 step plan to attend to the unfinished business in our lives - transition effortlessly. This break between chapters allows the reader to pause, close the book, and ponder the healing message each step offers. (Early on in this life-giving book, the author recommends we read only one chapter each day.) That was initially difficult for me because I wanted to keep on going but I followed his suggestion and it made for a rich reflection. I was particularly touched in Chapter 18 where Dr. Hollis shares his personal thoughts on honoring the difference between job, duty, and calling. Here he expressed his own gratitude to all the people in his life who do jobs that each of us benefits from daily. In this chapter he also mentioned a bit about his own journey and the difficult paths of those others he loved and who didn’t have as many opportunities as he. James Hollis is a brilliant man yet his kindness, his humor, and his humanity are ever present in his books as well as in his lectures. He is a man for all seasons and this latest book, Living An Examined Life, will help a multitude; it has already helped me and my soul thanks him for doing so.

I’ve previously read Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life by the same author, which I found thought provoking. The themes are the same in this book, but the subject matter is distilled and I found it fresh and thought provoking. If you are not familiar with Hollis, his style is poetic and meditative, and it was helpful in my own reflection on my life. In general, this book supports personal growth and I highly recommend it. The approach he recommends is to read one chapter per day, which I did and it took about 10-15 minutes per day to read. Accounting for missed days, it took about a month to read. I also journaled about personal experience about passages that resonated with me, which I highlighted in the kindle version of the book. A great experience and I expect to refer back to it over time.

If you want to whittle your life down to its bare essence by examining the very contents of your soul, so that you can come “skidding into the end zone” satisfied and spent, you must read this book. This is the “attainment of personhood”, as Hollis calls it. Our very soul demands that we show up for ourselves and step into ourselves. I certainly thought I had already done that before I read this book, but Hollis has a way of illuminating the smallest of your dark corners and showing you where you still need to grow and to grow up. He writes honestly and humbly and shares his own shortcomings so that you feel a kinship, a peerdom, and not at all lectured. Thank you, thank you for writing this.

"Although the world is full of people who will tell you who you are, what you are, and what you are to do and not to do, they wander amid their unaddressed confusion, fear, and need for consensual belief to still their own anxious journey". (locs. 83-85). The last book by Hollis is perhaps the most accessible didactic and approachable book he has ever written, and the one I would recommend to anybody who wants to get a shortcut to his work. In Living an Examined Life, Hollis has somewhat put aside his usual erudition, academic writing, psychologist jargon and complexity of thought, and made a serious effort to address those points of his discourse that I've always found a bit vague or difficult to understand. However, no sacrifice has been made regarding content, and you will still find his usual depth of thought, understanding of human suffering and nature, his compassion for human weakness, and his analysis of preconditioned inherited ancestral behaviour and complexes. There is, as usual in his work, a call to live our own live with purpose, taking responsibility for it, to honour our true nature and live authentic and genuine lives, to do/work vocationally because our vocation is the expression of our soul not just something we do for fame, money, power and social accolades. Living an Examined Life is is not a book with solutions to our problems, but a book with sound advice on how to overgrow them by changing our attitudes, behaviours and way of seeing them, by going inside ourselves and taking responsibility for our deeds, and changing anything that stops us from being who we truly were born to be. It demands sitting with our discomfort and asking to it which message is bringing to us. It demands from us doing what we fear the most, learning to love our unlovable parts, scrutinising our inherited values, and deciding which ones are meaningful to us. In a way, we are asked to become medieval-alike post-modern warriors, and go in search of the evil dragon inside ourselves to rescue our true self. SOME OF MY HIGHLIGHTS There are so many paragraphs and comments that really made the reading very fulfilling and satisfying to me. Herewith a few of them: >> Chapter 10, W"hat gift have you been withholding from the world?" is beautifully profound yet simple, it speaks to the soul without the need of calling any gods, and it is a call to authenticity and honouring the call of our soul. >> Although Hollis devoted a whole book to the Shadow ( Why Good People Do Bad Things: Understanding Our Darker Selves ), nothing comes nearly as clear to a definition of the shadow as the one he provides in this book. >> One of the things I have criticised Hollis for in the past is for his vague definition of Second Half of Life but, in this book, Hollis does a great job at defining what that exactly means by that. >> Hollis almost-utopian parenthood model is utterly beautiful, like a step ahead of our times, perhaps; something that, if I had children, I would try to implement so that my unborn children would be whatever they wanted to be, to shine their light or perhaps their crap, without judgement, if that is ever possible. >> Hollis' call to re-evaluate our life authorities is perhaps the most revolutionary aspect of his work, and also one of the things that gives me the most comfort. It makes me realise that we all live in the same existential mess and forces me to be more compassionate with myself and others: "Tiny in a world of giants, we reason that surely the world is governed by those who know, who understand, who are in control. How disconcerting it is then when we find our own psyches in revolt at these once protective adaptations, and how disillusioning it is to realize that there are very few, if any, adults on the scene who have a clue as to what is going on." (locs. 155-157). "Growing up requires that we accept that no one out there knows what is going on, that they are as much at the mercy of their complexes and unconscious mechanisms as the least of us, and so now we must figure it out for ourselves." (locs 1699-1701). >> Hollis munching about happiness are precious. He debunks happiness, I know, I know, nothing we would like to hear when we are reading a book to help us with our miseries. However, Hollis' focus is on seeking meaning instead of happiness, because that's more important for the soul. He says that 'meaning is an organ of the soul'. Amen! SOME QUERIES >> Given the definition Hollis makes of Second Half of Life, I wonder why not changing it for something less anachronistic and more precise, like True Maturity or True Adulthood, perhaps. Second Adulthood, which Hollis uses at times in the book is also misleading because some people only become adults after a crisis, so that is their first psychological adulthood no? >> I found myself pondering about the following statement: " Virtually every client with whom I have worked over the last four decades has had to struggle mightily to find a personal path, a journey that is right for him or her. They all find their journeys impeded by parental limitations, pressures, and models.(locs. 1333-1335)." My question is, can our innate character and way of being be strong enough to obtrude our advance us despite what he says in the quotation? >> Regarding his ideal model of parenthood, I found myself questioning if different family structures and ways of relating, as those we see in different world cultures can do this in different ways that are still healthy for the psyche but coming from different cultural backgrounds. >> Hollis bluntly states that rites of passage are missing in our contemporary culture. I consider that true if we talk about passage rituals as seen in traditional cultures and the times of our elders. However, I consider some young people's wild behaviour as rites of passage, it is just that they are vacuous, meaningless, rites of separation, at best, that do not bring real maturity. Also, women had rarely had rites of passage in traditional cultures, as within those traditions women were second-class humans, souls and brains, mostly child-bearers and rearers. So, in a way, many women have only male rituals of passage to imitate, and I wonder whether young women behaving wildly, as wild as wild men, aren't just taking on passage rites that once were male because they don't have a substitutive that brings power and meaning to their lives. I also wonder whether feminism, the meaningful version not fanatic one, is a form of ritual passage for contemporary women, as it is charged with meaning, and serves women, even those who reject it, but can vote or work in whatever they want because feminist fought for that. I'd love to hear Hollis comment on this. IN SHORT Living an Examined Life is a book easy to read, meaningful, thoughtful and very comforting, but also a bit repetitive and impractical if you want step-by-step practical advice. This is not a book with cookie-cutter solutions or rosy advice. I can only say that I always come back to my highlights of this book when I have a bad day, feel awkward for being myself, and find myself immersed in misery and stuck in ways of being that I know don't work for me. Hollis is ready waiting for me, with a hug to comfort me, a whisper in my ear to wake me up, and slap on the face to react. Are you up to the task? For whatever reason, I think this book is especially suited to introverts, who naturally seek introspection and depth.

I’ve read almost all of his books (just 2 more to go) and this one really helped me understand a lot about myself and the world we live in. I kept experiencing “Ah-ha” moments while reading it. It resonated with a lot of things I believe, have learned and see happening in current polarized world. August 2021

Awesome book beyond pop psychology and self help

A life changer. Wisdom at it's greatest.

Hollis fully and relentlessly confronts and embraces the ontological questions, anxieties and insecurities of anyone, not just in their third, but any age, who dare look over the parapet of the day-to-day mundane. With great depth, eloquence and gentle humour, he guides us through an exploration of the who, where, what, when and why of the dark night of the soul, but just falls short of explaining quite how to divine and bring to consciousnes our innate and evolving purpose in life. Nevertheless, a beautifully crafted and delighfully challenging read, which will have you reaching for your dictionary, delighting in literary technique and bathing in the warm comfort of a deeply considered, fearless, guide through the clamour and chaos of societal vicissitudes and contemporary thought. Hollis is the parent that you always might have wanted and to cut the crap, so to speak, I would offer this brilliant book to any thinking 20 year old, leaving home, to begin their own search for meaning in life.

finaly a book that will not end up in the dustbin...very lucid and as well recomforting for those who already had the courage to follow the urges of their soul.

I've read several of James Hollis' books. He's an incredibly wise, penetrating yet easy to read Jungian analyst. Recommended life wisdom and guidance for people of all ages, but especially for those of us in the second half of life.