There have been so many famous psychologists throughout history, and they’ve all helped shape how we view modern psychology and the inner workings of the mind. There are, of course, more controversial figures like Sigmund Freud, but his ideas still influenced the way people view the field—even if that’s because it inspired them to veer away from his views. And while his career is much more than his connection to the Austrian neurologist, Carl Jung was a psychiatrist, psychotherapist and psychologist who went on to develop his own theories and psychological methods after working alongside Freud.
Born in Switzerland in 1875, Jung went on to found analytical psychology, which Britannica reports is almost a “response” to Freud’s psychoanalytic concepts. He also developed the idea of the extraverted and the introverted personality, archetypes and the collective unconscious. As the Society of Analytical Psychology (SAP) reported, Jung is “one of psychology’s pioneering figures of the 20th century” and a “radical and inspiring psychologist and thinker who developed… a unique way of understanding the human psyche and its functioning.”
Considering he is the founder of analytical psychology, which focuses on immediate conflicts rather than childhood trauma, per Britannica, our quote of the day feels right up his alley. Jung created this psychoanalytic method to specifically differentiate from Freud’s concepts, which famously hinged on certain neuroses and childhood issues. So while Freud’s psychology might point to your past traumas defining you and explaining every idiosyncrasy of yours, Jung—as today’s quote suggests—doesn’t believe what happened to you has to be who you are.
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Quote of the Day by Carl Jung
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“I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become.”
This quote is often attributed to his 1961 autobiography, Memories, Dreams, Reflections. While I couldn’t locate the exact quote, something similar is written in the Richard and Clara Winston translation from 1963. In Chapter II, “School Years,” Jung writes:
“But at this moment I came upon myself. Previously I had existed too, but everything had merely happened to me. Now I happened to myself. Now I knew: I am myself now, now I exist. Previously I had been willed to do this and that; now I willed. This experience seemed to me tremendously important and new: there was ‘authority’ in me.”
This comes after he tells a story about how he was shoved down when he was 12 years old, hitting his head hard against the ground, resulting in constant fainting “fits.” He couldn’t go to school for six months, and while he at first felt “free” (as any kid in that position would), he started to feel like he was “fleeing” from himself and wasn’t actually enjoying it.
Jung writes that his parents were extremely worried about him, understandably so, and sent him to many doctors who couldn’t figure out what was wrong with him.
One day he overheard his father tell a friend that Jung was in a “sad” position and that he worried that his son would never be able to work and support himself. This upset Jung at first, but then it inspired him to study on his own and become “a serious child.”
His fainting episodes hindered him at first, but he sort of willed himself to stave them off and got rid of them altogether. Because of this, he came to the conclusion that this whole thing was his own making, his own “neurosis” (a term used at the time for disorders caused by anxiety), which made him unable to function academically for months. But he came back more diligent afterward, and inspired his “conscientiousness” not for anyone else but his “own sake.”
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Deeper Meaning of Carl Jung’s Quote—Your Past Is Not Your Future
Jung believed that even if you faced trauma and hard times in the past, you don’t have to let them define your future. And while this quote doesn’t apply to every single hardship someone might face (some things require professional help to overcome them, or they might never “right” themselves or go back to the way they were), you can still “choose” who you become by how you deal with something. You get to decide how something defines you, or if it doesn’t.
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More Quotes from Carl Jung
- “Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”
- “The world will ask you to become what you are, to fulfill your destiny. If you do not heed this call, you will be compelled to live according to what others see in you.”
- “You are what you do, not what you say you’ll do.”
- “The sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.”
- “Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.”
- “We must remember that the rationalistic attitude of the West is not the only possible one and is not all-embracing, but is in many ways a prejudice and a bias that ought perhaps to be corrected.”
- “We walk in shoes too small for us.”
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