Happiness: Six contradictions that will help you to be happier.

Every Wednesday is Tip Day.
This Wednesday: 6 contradictions that, if embraced, will help you to be happier.

My nine-year-old daughter is fascinated by anything that smacks of paradox. Just yesterday, she noticed that a bank statement that I’d left on the kitchen table had a page that said, “This page intentionally left blank.” “Look, Mom!” she said gleefully. “It can’t be labeled that it was 'left blank.' 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 paradoxes I kept confronting. The opposite of a great truth is also true. I try to embrace these contradictions:

1. Accept yourself, but expect more of yourself.
2. Keep an empty shelf, and keep a junk drawer.
3. Take yourself less seriously—and take yourself more seriously.
4. Use your time efficiently, yet make time to play, to wander, to read at whim, to fail.
5. Think about yourself so you can forget yourself.
6. The days are long, but the years are short.

Often, the search for happiness means understanding both sides of the contradiction.

Take, for example, Item #1 above. 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.”

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The folks at the Spiritual Book Club blog were nice enough to interview me. Lots of great material on that site.

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Interested in starting your own Happiness Project? If you’d like to take a look at my Resolutions Chart, for inspiration, just email me at grubin, then the “at” sign, then gretchenrubin dot com. No need to write anything more than “Resolutions Chart” in the subject line.

Comments

[Helen]

I really like this post, Gretchen.

Seeing the world in binary opposites such as black/white, imperfect/perfect and right/wrong is often a source of anxiety and unhappiness for me, because the binary model doesn't mesh nicely with reality.

Your list of contradictions reminds me that the world is a wonderful, complicated and often confusing place, and that I'm a happier person when I understand and accept that.

[Milt]

Think in terms of balance instead of either/or and the paradox disappears.

[Helena]

i really like this post. not only because it actually gets me thinking but also because i tend to always see things in black and white - in a negative way. if i decide on something and fail a tiny bit one day, the whole day is ruined. stupid, eh? ;) i will try to think of these 6 contradictions next time.

i hope it's ok that i copy this post to my own blog (I am of course linking to your blog)

take care
/H

[FupDuckTV]

I didn't like this post at first. These are contradictions, therefore they instintively don't make sense. BUT, when you read into them they have merit. I can't say they are right, but they have merit. I firmly believe in the duality of man and the ying/yang concepts. I've always thought that happiness comes from balance in everything you do. You need both, even the good AND evil.

[Jenn]

I'm completely in favor of #4. The others I need to think about to determine what they mean for me. I think the one that I have the hardest time with is #3. The truth is that I'm just NOT that important in the world yet I AM important to the world. I continually seek balance in this area. Thanks for yet another great post!

[Rant93]

You are absolutely right. People tend to cling to their favorite side of each equation or use one or the other as an excuse for their decisions. My favorite example is "Birds of a feather flock together" vs. "Opposites attract." Both equally true, and equally meaningless, neither side alone the basis for a balanced life.

[John Scott]

I like the fact that you learned from your nine year old. My nine year old helps me find happiness in many ways also.

I also enjoy contradictions, and may I add these: to be forgiving, and to be assertive; to be active and to relax; to innovate, and to honor tradition.

[Jayne]

I only worked out in the last few months how much pleasure I get from surprising contradictions (although they are silly little contradictions, rather than pearls of wisdom like your list) - e.g. the chandelier hanging in a city laneway lined with rubbish bins, the fact the song Mahna Mahna from the Muppet Show originally appeared in an R rated movie, and the word 'quotidian' which means commonplace, when it is hardly a common word.

As other have mentioned above, I think the ability to accept contradiction in life is good for your mental wellbeing.

[becoming minimalist]

nice thoughts on some of the paradoxes of life. i agree with all of them. my problem is realizing when i am leaning towards one side of the paradox rather than balancing both.

[Lori]

Your daughter may like this billboard I saw along the freeway yesterday... "Honk if you love peace and quiet!"

[Flora Morris Brown, Ph.D.]

This post reminds me of what I learned in a photography class. Even so-called black and white photos are 18% gray.

Our happiness depends on the extent to which we are comfortable with the gray, the uncertainty, the randomness that doesn't fit neatly into boxes such as the contradictions you mention here.

The best thing we can do for ourselves is develop trust and build confidence in ourselves so that we find our rightful place among the many uncertainties and contradictions of life.

[Randi]

I am a 53 year old woman, raising 2 grieving teenagers.One is 19 and in Ithaca College...we are very close. One is 15, who lives with me at home and am just starting Family Therapy with her...she was Daddy's Girl.She is going through the horrible stage of adolecence and dealing finally with her Person, her precious Dad not being here.It is by far, the most challenging and difficult thing I am doing ...raising this very angry, very sad, , sweet horrid teenager. She is abusive and so much work.I feel battered and worn most of the time.
I am also involved in a long distance, very intense relationship.I grew up with this Man and it wasn't planned that we would meet again and fall in love.
Allowing someone to know me and truly love me for who I am..... is a terribly painful yet liberating wonderful experience.I visit about every 6 weeks to another state and our plans is that I will eventually move out there, buy a new house with a beautiful room for my Girls to come visit or stay and marry him.
I am a "one day at a time" type of woman.
I get through with "baby steps".
It is what works for me.
He will be a strong loving presence in my Girls lives one day.... if things come to pass...He will never be there Dad.
It is almost 2 years since my Husband of 22 years died. I have been in bereavement therapy for the last 2 years....but children grieve so differently.
There is tremendous ups and downs ...for they just can't tolerate the pain for all that long.
There are so many contradictions in this grieving process.
I am so grateful for the help I get in sorting and figuring it all out on a daily level.
This is my first time to this siteand would love to be a part of these very thoughtful and inspiring Women.
Now is my time for self acceptance and to be a loving strong influence in my Girls lives.
I also am trying my best to accept that someone actually loves me for exactly who I am....I felt my Husband sent me this Man so I wouldn't be alone. It is a soul searching and fearful venture in being true to who I am....yet I am.
I think I am doing really well, though so many days are just filled with intense
emotion and sadness.....I am doing just fine.
My name is Randi and my email is rkrapp@optonline.net.
I look forward to the next post.

[Timothy Smith]

Gretchen

I love this article.

Have you ever read Tuesday's With Morrie? An all time favorite of mine.

In the book he discusses a phenom called the "tension of opposites"

"Life is a series of pulls back and forth. You want to do one thing, but you are bound to do something else. Something hurts you, yet you know it shouldnt."

http://homepages.stmartin.edu/students/jennifer.bustos/tuesdaywithmorrie.htm

For me its like golf.. at times is seems so simple, yet its so rediculously challanging.
Anyhow,great article!

[Happiness Seeker]

There are thousands of links that guarantees happiness, thousands of experts who give us sure-shot way to happiness. But I wonder, are they really happy from inside? I am a happiness seeker and my first priority is to find out where happiness is? If anyone has found out, then he or she can share the secret with me
http://www.paramananda.blogspot.com/

[Mayank Dhingra]

Ask yourself are you happy, and you seize to be.....

[Pat Meiser]

I am reading "The Post Birthday World" - a book you suggested in a previous post. I am loving this book! Thank you for the recommendation. The author makes note of the contradiction that often the moment you start to notice your own happiness is the moment it starts to elude you. I thought this was an interesting observation which I am still pondering.

[Kate T.W.]

a paradox I like to think about is this, which comes from my Sufi practice: my meditation practice is not about self-improvement. It is about being present with what is. and... I do my meditation to become the most perfect (most human) person I can be.

[Rod Sherwin]

One of my favourite paradoxes is that "its all personal and nothing is personal". Its all personal in the way that we respond to things yet the way people react to use is usually more about them than us; we just happen to be the person they are playing out their drama with.

[ellen]

I'm not so sure about the ask yourself if your happy and you cease to be happy. At times possibly I don't ask myself, but definitely realize that I am so happy and am grateful for that...Of course I believe you must have had times to be unhappy to realize how good Happy is....I love happy!!!!and your website has increased my happiness....so, thank you
ellen.

[nancy]

There are no contradictions.