Looking forward to the day AI will give us only 5 fingers

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”
~ Carl Jung

Carl Jung was a very famous Psychologist who amongst other great ideas, introduced the concept of our ‘shadows‘. Or the parts of us ‘we don’t want to look at’. Because we are either scared or ashamed to accept them.

For instance, maybe when someone cuts you off in traffic, you become really angry and start screaming (which is out of character for your usual you); or maybe whenever you get an opportunity (sign a deal, a promotion, a date, … ) you stuff it up somehow (as if something from within you was sabotaging it).

No matter what it is, we all have our shadows inside. And Carl Jung argued that:

1. It is ok to have them (we are all human)
2. Either we make peace with them, or they will control our life

Now, something that is not mentioned so often is that the shadow could even be ‘good’ in some cases. If channeled correctly, it can be a strong drive for great things.

For example, imagine a really caring person, perhaps a nurse. Always going out of her way for others. To make sure everyone is safe and ok. While that is great, the dark side of that drive may be… a need for approval. For validation. Like there’s a voice inside whispering: ‘you’re not good enough’.

Well, thanks to that drive, a nurse can save thousands of lives every year. Perhaps this was a similar shadow drive behind Mother Teresa – and look and how much good she did for humanity!

Another example is a scientist or technologist that spends countless hours in his lab. They keep working and working. Learning and learning. And what may potentially be behind it? A drive to be better than the rest. Craving that moment to say ‘I told you so’. What psychologists call a superiority complex.

However, it is thanks to that very shadow that many of the major advancements in science and technology that we have had throughout history have come to exist. A similar shadow may have very well been the drive of Nikola Tesla, and to this day we are still living off his innovations!

So in a way, a ‘shadow can be used for good’ too.

To wrap things up, 2 questions for you:

1. What are your shadows?
2. How do they benefit you or the world?