A couple of life’s comical contradictions worth pondering and perhaps exploring.
- The best things in life are on the other side of comfort so seek discomfort.
- When we go in every direction, we go nowhere. When we narrow our direction, we go everywhere.
- Pleasure is pain. Desire is suffering.
- Heightened focus and engagement occurs when we try less.
- Adversity is opportunity.
- Fear is overcome by acknowledging it. Then, going through it.
- See a little, see a lot. See a lot, see nothing at all.
- This one belongs to Buddha. Anger is a hot coal we hold in our hand waiting to throw at someone else. Only we are certain to get burned.
- Less is more.
- “The mystery of life is not a problem to solve but a reality to experience.” Straight from the masterpiece that is Dune.
- We don’t need to have every experience to understand experience.
- I am paraphrasing Seneca. Life is not short. Rather, it is long and a sufficient amount has been granted to us. The problem is we waste it.
- The present moment is eternal. The past and future are finite.
- The opposite of love is not hate; it is indifference. Hate is love gone awry. When we hate something, we care about it, so a part of us loves it.
- Knowledge means little. Action means much.
- To attain wisdom, one must explore without seeking. It is a goalless goal. Seeking dilutes the path. It shows us what we wish to see. We are prisoners to our own pursuit.
- All life transforms. The essence of everything is a part of us and us a part of it.
For more of life’s paradoxes read the Tao Te Ching, check out some Zen Koans, or, my personal favorite, go explore and live life. The paradoxes will present themselves.
