Carl Jung’s Formula for A Happy Life

Life can be interpreted in many ways. Here’s the perspective of one of the greats

Andy Murphy
4 min readJan 2, 2024
Photo by Awaken LIVE on Unsplash

You know Carl Jung. Happiness wouldn’t be happiness if it wasn’t infused with a little bit of sadness. So this isn’t your traditional happy-go-lucky kind of blog because that wasn’t Carl Jung’s style.

Instead, his formula for a happy life is somewhat paradoxical.

“No tree, it is said, can grow to heaven unless its roots reach down to hell.” — Carl Jung

We’re not going to be travelling to hell here but his philosophy is partly based on a non-dualistic mindset that says our light must co-exist alongside our darkness to not suppress or deny any part of ourselves.

This was his version of wholeness.

“I must also have a dark side if I am to be whole” — Carl Jung

So, wholeness — or happiness — depends upon our ability to accept both within ourselves.

Over his 85 years, Carl Jung shared many ways to do this, namely with a fair dose of patience and equanimity.

“Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.

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