Do You Embrace These Contradictions? They’re Important for Happiness
Gretchen Rubin
6x NYT Bestselling Author | Host of the "Happier with Gretchen Rubin" Podcast | Pre-order "Secrets of Adulthood," out April 1st
I love Secrets of Adulthood, fables, teaching stories, koans, and paradoxes–or anything that smacks of paradox. For instance, I get a big kick out of the page of my bank statement that reads, “This page intentionally left blank.” No, it’s not blank. It has that notice printed on it!
As I’ve worked on my happiness project, I’ve been struck by the contradictions I kept confronting. The opposite of a profound truth is also true, and I often find myself trying to embrace both sides of an idea:
Accept myself, and expect more of myself.
Use my time efficiently, yet make time to play, to wander, to read at whim, to fail.
Take myself less seriously—and take myself more seriously.
Someplace, keep an empty shelf, and someplace, keep a junk drawer. (If you want to see my empty shelf with your own eyes, watch here at minute 6:41–some people are dubious about whether I actually have one.)
Think about myself so I can forget myself.
Paying close attention to something sometimes helps me to ignore it. (Like cravings.)
Often it takes discipline to take pleasure.
If I want to keep going, I must allow myself to stop.
The days are long, but the years are short. Of everything I’ve ever written, I think this one-minute video resonates most with people.
Often, the search for happiness means embracing both sides of the contradiction.
Take, for example, Item #1 above–certainly one of the central challenges of life. W. H. Auden articulates beautifully this tension: “Between the ages of twenty and forty we are engaged in the process of discovering who we are, which involves learning the difference between accidental limitations which it is our duty to outgrow and the necessary limitations of our nature beyond which we cannot trespass with impunity.”
Which ones particularly resonate with you? What am I leaving out?
If you're interested, I write a lot about the paradoxes of happiness in The Happiness Project.
Speaking of The Happiness Project, would you like a free, personalized, signed bookplate for your copy of The Happiness Project or Happier at Home? Or, if you have the e-book or the audio-book, a signature card? Or would you like these for a friend? Request them here. Ask for as many as you'd like, but alas, because of mailing costs, I can now mail only to the U.S. and Canada. So sorry about that.
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Gretchen Rubin is the author of the blockbuster New York Times bestsellers, The Happiness Project and Happier at Home. She writes about happiness and habit-formation (the subject of her next book) at gretchenrubin.com. Follow her here by clicking the yellow FOLLOW button, on Twitter, @gretchenrubin, on Facebook, facebook.com/GretchenRubin.
Photo: ChemicalKidx, Flickr
Staff Accountant - Cathedral Square
10 年"If I want to keep going, I must allow myself to stop." reminds me of " insanity is keep doing the same thing and expecting different results" which resonates with me as "the harder I work, the behinder I get". :)
Psychotherapist, Career/Life Transition Coach, Workshop Facilitator, Author, Painter
10 年Many years ago, at a conference, I bought a poster that began, "I am a living contradiction, sometimes truth and sometimes fiction..." I have since lost that poster, yet the beginning phrase lingers on.
Poet
10 年I like your topic a lot, Gretchen. I was thinking about this last week when I heard a man repeating old ideas about repressing fear in favor of love. His line of gab struck me as wrong because he avoided the paradox. I also like what Jim K. posted on the importance of teaching critical thinking. Finding the paradox in all things is a way to develop a healthy skepticism.