By Diane Evans
DelMio.com
OK, explain life to me.

That’s what the life’s work of the late psychiatrist Carl Jung attempts to do. Sure, a lot of people try to explain life. But Jung’s work stands out, and is the subject of so much modern study and commentary, because he appeals to what many of us know intuitively. In other words, he validates concepts many of us feel and believe through our inner wisdom.

Each year, I look forward to classes on Jungian thought during the summer season of programs at the nonprofit Chautauqua Institution in southwestern New York. Jung taught that myths and fairy tales mirror the basic patterns of the human psyche. The Chautauqua classes most often focus on these myths and fairy tales, through the masterful teaching of Kaye Lindauer, now in her 21st season at Chautauqua, and recently retired as a school librarian and lecturer at Syracuse University.

During one recent session, Lindauer told an Italian fable about The North Wind.
In the story, a poor farmer worries about how to feed his family after winds destroy his crops several years in a row. The farmer goes to see the North Wind, to plead for help. Depending on your beliefs, you can see the North Wind as a symbol for God, or a higher power, or even a positive force of energy.

Long story short: The North Wind helps the farmer, but the farmer keeps sabotaging his own interests and his family’s interests, by letting his landlord (who also happens to be a priest) take advantage of him.
Each time the farmer falls into despair, he goes back to The North Wind (a good move). The farmer ultimately prospers once he learns not just to take the gifts of the North Wind, but also – and this is critically important – to protect those gifts from people, such as the priest-landlord, who are greedy and try to push others around.

The moral of the story: Living a just life doesn’t mean you’re so goody-goody all the time that you let other people take advantage of you. Balance is required, and that means you need to be tough and aggressive at times for your own good and the good of those in your care.

The key is balance. If you’re too passive, expect to get snookered. But if you’re too aggressive, you’ll end up being a bully and you’ll pay consequences in the end.

Balance is central to Jungian thought, as it is to various religious beliefs. In Jewish mysticism, for example, the whole idea of the tree of life is about keeping life in balance. Each positive attribute must be kept in check against its negative counterpart. For instance: Too much generosity and you go broke. Yet on the other hand, too much stinginess and you end up poor in spirit.

Standing up for ourselves – with just the right dose of force – can be one of the most difficult balancing acts of all. In The North Wind story, the farmer takes his blows until he finally learns the hard way.
You probably don’t need to study Jung to know that’s the way life is.