Tuesday, December 21, 2010

5 Factors for Happiness, According to Carl Jung


In 1960, Jung was interviewed by journalist Gordon Young, who asked, "What do you consider to be more or less basic factors making for happiness in the human mind?" Jung answered:
"1. Good physical and mental health.
2. Good personal and intimate relationships, such as those of marriage, the family, and friendships.
3. The faculty for perceiving beauty in art and nature.
4. Reasonable standards of living and satisfactory work.
5. A philosophic or religious point of view capable of coping successfully with the vicissitudes of life."
Jung also added, “All factors which are generally assumed to make for happiness can, under certain circumstances, produce the contrary. No matter how ideal your situation may be, it does not necessarily guarantee happiness.”
I did disagree strongly with Jung on one point -- when he said, “The more you deliberately seek happiness the more sure you are not to find it." I know, Carl Jung vs. Gretchen Rubin! But though many great minds, such as John Stuart Mill, make the same point as Jung, I don't agree.
I find that the more mindful I am about happiness, the happier I become. Take the five factors Jung outlined above. By deliberately seeking to strengthen those elements of my life, I make myself happier.

What do you think? Do you agree with the five factors? And do you find that mindfully pursuing happiness makes you happier, or less happy?

14 comments:

  1. All of them are important to me but most importantly out of those - friends and family!

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  2. too bad i dont have any of these in my life, i think reaching your goals creates the basis in which happiness would be a byproduct of your life.

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  3. I agree. Its only logical that you'll find what you seek

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  4. i agree with these pointers, he was a smart man

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  5. I couldn't agree more with these five factors! Wasn't sure about the fifth at first but it seems pretty logical at last.

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  6. Anonymous9:03 AM

    i follow the first 4 and i avoid religion and things're so far so good. i'm also not mindful of pursuing happiness as i believe that i already have it. nice blogs. cheers.

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  7. I agree with these five factors =)

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  8. It's the ultimate goal in most people's book I think. It means a lot of things in different ways, so it's a broad subject. But yeah, I agree.

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  9. life definitely sucks at times, but we have a choice in how we approach any obstacles we encounter.

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  10. I pretty much agree with all of these, except maybe #5 a little bit less. Carl Jung was such a smart guy!

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  11. Anonymous10:04 PM

    I agree with the five factors. I also believe in one of his sayings describing how any type of addiction is bad!

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  12. Yeah, this is valid. Unfortunately in this materialistic, inflating society money provides the ability to pursue such happiness :(

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  13. It's so strange how you can condense happiness into 5 fairly simple bullet points but yet it is still nearly impossible to acquire for many individuals.

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