Life Project

Abstract

José Ortega y Gasset states that men are their lives, and that these lives consist in existing in a circumstance not chosen by themselves, but into which they were thrown, and to stay afloat and live they must do something, swim to shore like someone who has fallen into the sea. And whoever falls into the sea swims before thinking they need to swim. That is the life project. Once an individual is already swimming, he may think what needs to be done to escape this situation: that is just a life plan. But to fulfill that plan, he must already be swimming: if he weren’t, he would drown. The life project is what someone is already doing in his life without forethought, and in which he stands. And when that doing responds to a defined wish in form and objective, it provides satisfaction no matter the results. That is vocation. One of the consequences of the current cultural crisis is the loss of contact with ourselves, living shallowly and without taking vocation into consideration. For the life project being the expression of vocation should be a fundamental objective of psychotherapy and of living in general. Paying attention to this matter would help solve the anomaly and lack of sense that burdens our lives, and which many times leads to addictions and violence.