The Inner Voice

Many of us grew up suspicious of people who talked of some "inner voice."
The only "voice-inside" most of us heard as children or teens was our conscience.
Yet, we have all had trouble, one time or another when our conscience, seemed to send mixed messages.
Inner conflict can be huge, as philosopher Viktor Frankl has pointed out. He used this example:

Consider a man in battle and he says that he will kill the enemy because he loves his country but something inside him stops him.  When the chips are down, he stops and says, in all good conscience I can't kill another man, who may have a family at home like me.

Here, Frankl points to Superego, the learned conscience given to us by society.
But another voice, we can call it the inner voice, can speak to the contrary.
Frankl called it the noetic dimension, which can guide us to a self-expression we can live with!
We have experienced it guiding us in emergencies (say when the car is out of control) and when "there is no time to think!"

Often, when helping young adults to think about their career,  I urged them to honor their interests.
These seem to come from a deeper place than family and other social urging. 
Usually, younger people have no idea of an inner voice, beyond the conscience society hands them.

Consider an executive jet:

• It has a sleek fuselage (a lovely Body)
• It has powerful motors to give it motion (powerful E-motions)

• It has a pilot, who has trained for months and years to take control
  in all kinds of weather conditions,etc.  (Mental Control)

Eventually, the pilot gets really good at flying the plane, doing very fancy work.
But, there comes a time when the pilot asks:  "What's the point anyway?"

At this time, the pilot realizes that the plane has:

1. a purpose and someone else is paying the fuel bills.
   
2. The purpose is fulfilled when "the passenger" gets where they need to go.
   
3. Without the passenger giving it a sense of direction and appropriate action
   it is only a practice run.
   
4. In some ways, we might say each run is a practice run for the next.

Yet, without direction from the Inner Voice, "What's the point, anyway?

Dr. Frankl observed that lacking meaning and purpose in life can lead to emotional and physical problems, even death in the concentration camp! Our modern cultures have not been very aware of this. So, this can be one cause of epidemic proportions of stress and depression."