When Analytical Psychologist Dr. Carl Jung was writing his book Symbols of Transformation, he realized what it meant to live a mythically inspired life, in comparison to living life without a transcendent narrative to guide one forward. Whether our life story unfolds spontaneously into a journey of self discovery, or folds up under the pressure of other people's opinions of how we should live, is determined by our awareness of the symbols that point us towards our authentic selves. 

 

To clear up any confusion, a myth is not a lie, falsehood, or hoax. A myth is a metaphor, that is to say, a myth is symbolic of a deeper truth that when interpreted literally doesn't make any sense. Truths so deep that these stories need to use illustrative language and figurative phrasing to reveal their meaning. 

 

In today’s world we have no general mythology guiding us to realize our spiritual selves, and many of the mythologies that are offered interpret their metaphors as historical facts. So where religious symbols are supposed to be interpreted as personal metaphors, allegorical of our own human experience, they are taken literally, only viable if one believes certain events actually happened.  

 

What Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell propose is that, in the absence of a prevailing effective mythology, we are all to translate religious metaphors discover our own personal myth. Carl Jung thought the most important question one can ask themselves is, “what is the myth by which I am living?”

 

“So, in the most natural way, I took it upon myself to get to know my myth, and this I regarded as my task of tasks.”

 

- Carl Jung 

 

How a person gets to know their myth is quite simple, but can be pretty problematic in practice. One way to understand your own story is to ask yourself, “what am I living for?” 

 

"You might ask yourself this question: if I were confronted with a situation of total disaster, if everything I loved and thought I lived for were devastated, what would I live for? If I were to come home, find my family murdered, my house burned up, or all my career wiped out by some disaster or another, what would sustain me? We read about these things everyday, and we think, well, that only happens to other people. But what if it happened to me? What would lead me to know that I could go on living and not just crack up and quit?” 

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- Joseph Campbell

 

What keeps you alive? What makes you do what you do? What is the call of your life to you? Do you know it? 

 

Another way to live your personal myth is by following the call of your curiosity. When you listen to the intuitive voice of fascination, you will find your authentic self. Although the things you find yourself attracted to might not always be safe, when you pass the bounds of fear, a deeper understanding of self is developed. Curiosity will sometimes kill you (I mean this metaphorically, mostly), but the satisfaction of self knowledge will bring you back.

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For more on this idea watch this video