What Does it Mean to Live an Examined Life?

Jack Baruch, MD

After decades of working as a psychiatrist, I've come to believe that much of human suffering does not come only from dramatic events, but from the quiet assumptions people carry about themselves and their lives.

An examined life is not a perfect life. It is a life in which one becomes curious about one's own patterns, one's own choices, and one's own story.

We are all unreliable narrators of our own lives to some degree. We remember selectively, we interpret defensively, and we construct meaning after the fact.

The examined life is the slow process of becoming more honest about the story we are telling ourselves.

Perhaps the examined life is simply this: The willingness to look again.