"Follow that will and that way which experience confirms to be your own"
About this Quote
The phrasing does quiet psychological work. “That will and that way” splits the self into two forces: the drive (will) and the method (way). Jung implies you can’t just want authentically; you have to move through the world in a pattern that repeatedly proves itself. “Confirms” is clinical, almost empirical, as if your life is a long-term study and the data keeps pointing to the same conclusion: this path fits you, that one doesn’t. It’s an identity built by recurrence, not revelation.
The subtext is classic Jung: individuation as an earned, sometimes painful alignment between conscious intention and the deeper currents of the psyche. It’s also a rebuke to borrowed lives - the roles prescribed by family, class, religion, or the fashionable moral program of the moment. Jung knew how easily people confuse social approval with inner direction; neurosis, in his framework, often blooms where a person’s lived experience is repeatedly overruled by what they “should” be.
Context matters: writing in a modern age full of mass politics, mass culture, and mass psychology, Jung offers a counter-pressure. Not rebellion for its own sake, but fidelity to the only authority he thinks can’t be faked for long: the evidence of your own life.
Quote Details
| Topic | Wisdom |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Jung, Carl. (2026, January 17). Follow that will and that way which experience confirms to be your own. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/follow-that-will-and-that-way-which-experience-30376/
Chicago Style
Jung, Carl. "Follow that will and that way which experience confirms to be your own." FixQuotes. January 17, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/follow-that-will-and-that-way-which-experience-30376/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"Follow that will and that way which experience confirms to be your own." FixQuotes, 17 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/follow-that-will-and-that-way-which-experience-30376/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.











