Member-only story
Three Paradoxes In Life That First Pissed Me Off — But Then Set Me Free
Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar once said: “The world is full of paradoxes and life is full of opposites. The art is to embrace the opposites, accommodate the paradoxes, and live with a smile.”
Initially, this annoyed me because I didn’t understand it. But the older I’ve gotten and the more life I’ve experienced, the truer it’s become.
Below are three paradoxes in life that have followed a similar trajectory. They first pissed me off but then set me free.
1. The Paradox of Giving
It’s logical to think that if you give something away, you don’t have it anymore. But that’s not how life works.
Those who give freely receive freely. So whatever is given away quickly returns.
It might look, sound, smell, taste, and feel different, but it’s true.
When I gave £50 to a homeless person the other day, initially, I was £50 down because the homeless person was never going to give me £50 back.
But as the day unfolded, a stranger online tipped me $10 for an article he read, a friend paid for a spontaneous lunch, and my mechanic didn’t charge me for some small repair work I asked him to do.