Some Interesting Paradoxes Of Our Society
Sunday, January 20th, 20081. In any job, we consider “service with a smile”—acting as if you really enjoy serving others—the ideal. But if you really do enjoy your job enough to be smiling while you do it, people will probably think you’re “weird” or mentally ill.
2. We go to work, buy more stuff, form our intimate relationships and so forth in order to be happy. But we worry that, if we actually allow ourselves to be happy, we’ll lose our drive to get those things.
3. We can give our families and friends our money, time, labor and other valuable possessions, but we can’t say “I love you” to them without feeling embarrassed or childish.
4. We go through our days wishing people would give us some peace and quiet, but when we actually get the chance to sit alone in silence we get bored and anxious.
5. We want people to love us for who we are, but we show them a carefully crafted image designed to “trick” them into loving us.
6. We think everything will be all right when we make more money, but no matter how much we make we never seem to have enough.
7. When we’re young, we wish we were older; but when we’re old, we wish we were younger.
8. We yearn for intimate relationships when we don’t have them in our lives, but when we get into them we start seeing our partners as sources of extra frustration.
9. We say we don’t want to fight in our intimate relationships, but our relationships somehow feel “wrong” or “off” if there isn’t enough conflict in them.
10. We want to be more emotionally connected with others, but we feel it’s impolite to ask them about their emotions or even make prolonged eye contact with them.
11. We want to be forgiven for our mistakes, but we won’t forgive others for theirs.
12. We don’t want to be ridiculed, but we ridicule others constantly, whether out loud or in our minds.
13. We say we don’t want to be unhappy, but we seem to take pleasure in telling others how unhappy we are.
14. We drink alcohol and take drugs to allow ourselves to be more honest with others, but when we sober up we regret what we told them.
15. We teach our children to be quiet and obedient to make our lives easier, and then wonder why they aren’t more independent and outgoing when they get out into the world.
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 | If you found this post useful, you'll likely find Chris's book, Inner Productivity, helpful as well. Inner Productivity is packed with techniques to help you find focus and motivation in your work from a mindful perspective. |
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