Someone once asked Sigmund Freud what the key to being a psychologically healthy human was. “Love and work,” Freud answered. “Work and love – what else is there?”

Whenever a famous person makes a short, blunt pronouncement, it opens up a debate about what exactly said famous person meant. Was Freud suggesting that all of us get married and hold down a 9-5? Was he being ironic?

His remark is anecdotal, so we can’t know for sure, but the generally accepted answer is that by “love” Freud meant “connection with others,” and by “work” he meant nurturing a purpose or talent of some kind. It sounds great on paper. But if “love and work” are the twin keys to happiness, why does it seem like so few people have managed to achieve both (or even one)?

Maybe “love and work” sounds like such a simple formula that people ignore it or dismiss it. Maybe it even sounds trite. I doubt this, though. Love and work, like the double helix of a DNA strand, are meant to complement one another. Thanks to the confounded world we live in, however, they can also be at odds, pulling in opposite directions.

Two Opposing Drives

“Two opposing drives operate throughout life,” wrote the psychoanalyst Anthony Storr. ¹“The drive for companionship, love, and everything else which brings us close to our fellow men; and the drive toward being independent, separate, and autonomous.” 

This tense duality is a relatively recent thing. As far back as human memory goes, we’ve needed the companionship of other humans to stay alive and happy. But the concept of “self-actualization” has thrown a giant fuzzy monkey wrench into our happiness plans: now that we have the option of going for broke on our dreams of being a nature conservationist or a YouTube influencer, a simple life with friends and family is no longer enough. Or is it?

You’ve probably seen the angst this causes people all around you: should I get married and have kids or travel to all seven continents first? Should I hang out with friends more often or put more hours into the novel I’m writing? Maybe you’re in the middle of such a dilemma yourself. In the cynical words of Soren Kierkegaard: “Do it or not, you’ll regret it either way.” ²

The devil’s advocate argues we’ve become too greedy. Our ancestors were content with the “slow living” of picking berries, hunting wild pigs, and telling stories around the nighttime campfire. If we just stopped wanting so many things, we could be happy like them.

But we know that’s not how life works.

Once we’ve tasted what’s possible – whether that’s earning money for the art we create or influencing someone’s mind with a brilliant idea – we can’t go back to how we lived before. Abraham Maslow, the great 20th-century psychologist, illustrates this with his “Hierarchy of Needs”: about halfway up the ladder is love, also known as “belonging.” But then, just one step above that is “freedom,” and then “self-actualization” – reaching our highest potential – at the very top.

According to Maslow, it’s not too much to “want it all”; these wants are, in fact, needs. The needs at the top aren’t as urgent as the needs at the bottom – to stay alive, we need food and shelter, not fulfilling our lifelong dream of becoming an astronaut. Still, all of these levels are needs if we’re going to live a rich, rewarding life (and we only live once).

So is Maslowe right, or Storr? Can we have both love and work, or are we forced to choose between the two?

This debate goes beyond the psychological into the philosophical, but here is my opinion: they are both true. We all need love and work – some sort of creative or innovative potential to fill – but in different forms and different proportions. The challenge is not following some formula that leads to fulfillment. The challenge is to understand ourselves.

“Know Thyself”

In ancient Greece, at the temple of Apollo of Delphi, was an inscription carved into the walls: ³  “Know thyself.”

It was meant to be read by every traveler passing through, including those who were there to visit the famous oracle. The challenge was for the reader to know his or her own limitations and weaknesses. In time, it came to mean much more: Plato and other philosophers used the phrase “know thyself” to invite readers to understand their very souls – their potential and temperament.

The next time you feel overwhelmed by the thought of all the things you want (or think you want) in life, ask: “Do I know myself? Do I want one of these things more than the others?” If you’re not sure, look at your life choices up to this point and reflect on how you feel about them.

In my short life I’ve had plenty of dreams about being a world-traveling nomad, an academic, a zoologist and a dancer, but none of those have come true (so far anyway). On the other hand, I also had a persistent desire to write and to have a permanent life partner: both of those things have happened for me, mainly because of all the things I cared about, I cared about those most. ⁴ All of us will have to sacrifice some of our dreams to make way for others; the only ones who truly lose out are the ones who are like Buridan’s donkey who, unable to choose between two equally tempting bales of hay, starves to death.

The next time someone tries to give you a formula for how to be happy, share this wisdom from Storr with them:

“Although man is a social being, who certainly needs interaction with others, there is considerable variation in the depth of the relationships which individuals form with each other. All human beings need interests as well as relationships; all are geared toward the impersonal as well as toward the personal. The events of early childhood, inherited gifts and capacities, temperamental differences, and a host of other factors may influence whether individuals turn predominantly toward others or toward solitude to find the meaning of their lives.”

While the challenge of our berry-eating ancestors was to stay alive and comfortable, the challenge of our time is to know ourselves enough to make wise choices that will help us reach our highest potential. 

Do we need love? Yes, but not all of us need to be married with three children.

Do we need “work”? Yes, but it may be more ambitious and all-consuming for some people, and more subtle for others. Octavia Butler, for example, was almost entirely consumed by her desire to be a writer – she called it “positive obsession.” Plenty of others may find that the intersection between work and love is more blurred; the schoolteacher, for example, experiences both personal connection and higher fulfillment in interacting with their students.

You will experience moments of confusion and frustration, if you haven’t already. You will wonder if you’ve made the choices that have led you to being as happy as you could have been. Part of being a wise person in the 21st century is knowing what things in life are negotiable for your happiness, and what things are not. We’re not born knowing it all at once, and we change over time. But deep in the seat of our souls are the things unique to us that we need and want, in the amounts that we need and want.

Seek love, seek work, but above all seek to know thyself.

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Read Next: Should You Live a “Psychologically Rich” Life? →

1. Storr, A. (2015). Solitude: A Return to the Self. Free Press
2. Kierkegaard, S. (1992). Either/Or: A Fragment of Life (A. Hannay, Trans.). Penguin Classics.
3. No one is sure exactly where it was carved. It may have been on a column, gateway, or somewhere else.
4. It should go without saying that luck also plays a role. How much, we can’t ever be sure.