6 Paradoxic Truths of Life

Nik

The first paradox I ever saw was Waterfall by M. C. Escher.

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How does a four-year-old come across a perpetual motion illusion by an artist who died 20 years before he was born? Well, it hung in our hallway. Not the original, of course. The copy provided enough staring material for hours.

How does that work? Why does the water flow up and down at the same time? How fast must the wheel spin to make it all go round? Most importantly, why aren’t they staring? The people in this painting have no care in the world. To them, this magnificent delusion barely exists.

When you first encounter a paradox, your brain goes on the fritz. Which version is true? Why don’t they add up? And why do they feel like, somehow, they still kind of do? It’s easy to get stuck on this part. To obsess and try to cram the contradiction into a box labeled ‘consistent’ in your mind.

If you don’t however, eventually, something wonderful happens: Your brain turns off. It stops trying. Suddenly, you can, somehow, accept the idea at face value and, instead of dissecting it, appreciate its beauty.

If you’ve ever felt this way, if you’ve ever been mesmerized by something you could not understand, then you’ve witnessed not just the beauty of paradox but, actually, the essence of life: It’s a mystery, but it’s marvelous.

Just because we can’t understand something doesn’t mean it’s not there by design. This applies to the mechanical parts of your coffee machine as much as it applies to a breakup, a car accident, or, well, this painting. All of it was designed just for you, just for this moment. You might not “get it” at the time, but, later, you most likely will. “You can only connect the dots looking backwards,” Steve Jobs once said.

Deep in our subconscious, we know this, and that’s why our brains allow us to eventually gloss over the details and focus on learning, enjoying, and finding the positives. Yes. This is the paradox we need right now. If we accept it, it’ll give us peace of mind, a sense of ease, and freedom from worry.

If we appreciate it even, it’ll open a door to a new perspective: Maybe, both versions are true. What if the paradox combines two ends of the same spectrum? And what if we can stand on that spectrum and re-balance as needed? Might what looks like a flaw actually be an advantage?

Open your mind. Let the paradox in. Appreciate its beauty and accept its truth. It’ll prove useful time and again. It’ll prove to be part of the design.

Here are six of my favorite examples of paradoxes that can make your life a lot easier.

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The Biggest Problem in the World

Nik

The biggest problem in the world is a lack of love.

Not as in “love between two partners” or even “parents loving their child,” although, with divorce rates as high as they are and the number of children raised by a single parent, clearly, those too are things we could work on.

No, the lack of love I mean is one of “love as a general attitude towards life and the people you find in it.” This kind of love isn’t expensive. It doesn’t come with a lot of stress, responsibilities, or sacrifice. It’s the kind of love that makes you glad the sun came up today. The kind that lets you walk into the office with a smile. This kind of love nods at strangers, gives thanks, and lends a hand when someone falls. It doesn’t pretend everything is perfect, but it acknowledges every moment is worth living.

Life is not perfect, but life is worth living. Every day, no matter how small, big, silly, devastating, exciting, or bad is worth your attention, time, and energy. All of it. Everything you’ve got.

Everything in life, you can do out of love. It sounds silly, but it’s true.

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The 4 Meta-Habits of Highly Successful People

Nik

In business school, I became obsessed with adopting habits. I trusted the idea that small things done consistently add up to big things in the long run.

Like millions of others interested in self-improvement, I read Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, one of the bestselling books of all time. It gave me some good tools to start with, but it makes a flawed assumption — that there exists an ideal set of habits for success, one that is finite, timeless, and exactly the same for everyone. What I learned through aggressive experimentation — waking up at 5 a.m. for three straight months, quitting caffeine for 100 days and alcohol for two years, taking cold showers, and walking 10,000 steps a day for a year — is that this is simply untrue.

Habits have served me well. I’ve published more than a thousand pieces of writing which have been read by millions of people. I’ve found a line of work I’m proud to be in, and I make a six-figure income with full control over my time and projects. But the big lesson I’ve learned is that success has little to do with any particular set of habits and everything to do with your ability to change your habits when you need to. Successful people aren’t just highly effective, they’re highly adaptable. Instead of one-and-done solutions, they adopt meta-habits — habits that help them manage their habits.

Here are four ways to use meta-habits to manage your growth.

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How To Become Emotionally Self-Sufficient

Nik

There’s a German saying that translates like this: The worst way of missing someone is to sit next to them, knowing they’ll never be with you.

For three years, I had sat next to her, and it was never going to work. Three long years of being in love with my best friend, that’s what it took for me to finally admit: “I will never be with this girl.”

I distinctly remember the day. It’s one of those rare memories you can access like a Youtube video. You click a button, and, instantly, you can see it. Clearly.

When I hit play on this one, I see myself sitting at my desk, crying. I was 18 years old. I don’t cry a lot, but this one hurt. Deep down, I had known for a while we’d never be together, but it was still overwhelming.

As much as I felt sad, I also felt relieved. Finally, I was free. Finally, I could move on. Some of my tears were happy tears. This is the most distinct part of the memory. I sat in my desk chair, thinking: “Well, at least I still have myself. I guess I’ll always have myself.”

Sometimes, I joke that, whenever I have to be alone, at least I’ll be in good company. It’s funny, but it’s also true. I can’t trace back this feeling any further than that memory. That day, I understood a huge emotional investment had failed, but I also realized my parents raised me to be my own best friend.

That’s a lot to take in, and that’s why I was crying.

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The 7 Quotes That Broke Me Out of My Career Crisis

Nik

Seven years ago, I had a mid-life crisis at the ripe age of 21. I was studying abroad in the US, and, suddenly, nothing about the career path I had chosen two years earlier seemed to make sense anymore.

Why do I need to work 60 hours a week just to pass seven random exams at the end of the semester? Should I really become a consultant if it means I won’t have time to spend any of the money I make? If I’m gonna work a lot, shouldn’t I work on something I believe in?

I was desperate for answers to these questions, and today, I’m happy to say I found them. I built a career that can last a lifetime from scratch, and even in its early stages, I earn more than the best entry-level job could provide. I’m not worried about the future and can stomach bad days with relative ease.

Of course, a lot happened in those seven years, but one of the first steps I took was so simple I didn’t consider it to be “a step” at all: I started a Facebook Page and posted inspiring quotes. Every day, I shared cliché little phrases with the world — on one hand, to take a stand in public, on the other to talk myself into going after my dreams.

While it’s easy to dismiss lines like “actions speak louder than words” as glib and indulging, they’re valuable not always due to their meaning but because they get you to do something when you would otherwise be doing nothing.

That said, I also learned that it doesn’t matter if something’s cliché as long as it’s true. Once I got off my high horse and really made an effort to consider and implement these ideas into my life, things did change for the better.

Here are seven of my favorite lines from that time and how they changed my perspective.

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Success for 20-Somethings

Nik

I won’t leave my 20s with a fiancé, a checked off bucket list, or a shredded body. I didn’t party a lot, date a lot, or travel as much as I would have liked.

I will, however, finish my 20s with two things most people want but don’t get: A job I can do for the rest of my life and financial independence.

Not in an I-can-buy-my-own-island sense but in an I-can-feed-a-family-of-four sense. All without a boss and including multi-year, what-if-shit-hits-the-fan savings, earned from doing what I love.

Two of the biggest existential fears we have in our 20s are feeling lost in our careers and anxious about our financial future. I have eliminated both of them. Who can say that before they’re 30? Not many.

To me, those two things are success. You may define it differently, and that’s okay. But if you want those two things, if you’re okay with figuring out the rest later, here’s everything I’ve learned about how to get them.

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Why You Should Unmatch People on Tinder

Nik

Seven years ago, I went to the theater with my then-girlfriend. Defending the Caveman is the longest running one-man play in Broadway history. It’s also full of great dating advice.

The show is about a guy who gets kicked out by his girlfriend, and then uses the time on his doorstep to tell the audience about the evolutionary roots of men and women. While I’m not sure how much of the play is based on actual science, plenty of it feels like it could be, which makes it fun and informative.

A recurring concept in the play is the hunter-gatherer analogy: Men hunt, women gather. Men have spears, women have baskets (in more than one literal sense). Men chase, women collect.

According to Rob — the guy on the street — this is why men are, on average, more competitive, single-minded, and prone to forgetting everything but their goal, whereas women are more collaborative, better at lateral thinking, and can juggle more balls at once.

Stereotypes or not, when it comes to modern dating, the online variant in particular, it seems at least one of them immediately falls apart: Both genders collect matches, even if they end up not pursuing most of their chat partners.

Let’s think out loud about why that is and if there’s a better way to handle your list of lucky swipes.

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Now Would Be a Great Time to Give Up

Nik

11:29 on a Thursday. PM, of course. You don’t feel like writing. You really, really don’t. But if you don’t prep another draft, you might fall behind on your experiment. You might not publish every weekday. So what can you do?

I mean, no one’s forcing you to write. You don’t need to. Especially not right now. The world will keep spinning either way. Who cares if you don’t?

Haven’t you earned the right to quit? Inbox zero, the call where you planned a new project, the newsletter you sent out — you did all of those today. Can’t that be enough? Of course, it could. It probably is. Yet here you are, staring at the blinking cursor.

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The 5 Qualities of Emotionally Mature People

Nik

A few years ago, we had a falling out with my grandfather.

Sadly, my grandma died fairly young. Lung cancer. 2008. After her death, my grandpa started “acting out” — or at least that’s what a parent might say.

Before he retired, my grandfather was an architect and a very successful one at that. Since grandma died, however, my grandpa has been “spending the money with both hands,” as we say in Germany. Trying to fill a void that can’t be filled, he buys cars, art, and expensive clothes. He takes fancy vacations, eats out a lot, and dates women half his age who only care about his money.

He’s also completely retreated from family activities. He bailed on my sister’s concert once — before it was her turn to sing. He never shows up at our house anymore. He’s angry, erratic, and scares everyone away, even his friends.

Now, my grandpa was always a bit difficult, but I also remember him as a generous, funny, interesting man. He always had good taste, hosted great parties, and told jokes about everything. Unfortunately, that man seems gone.

Next to my aunt, I was among the last to visit him before he stopped talking to us altogether. In the end, what shocked me the most was his utter lack of perspective. He was unable to see anyone else’s point of view, and that’s why he now spends most of his time alone.

My grandpa never grew up. He is a 4-year-old child inside the body of a 79-year-old man. What my grandpa is missing — and what my grandma used to compensate for all these years — is emotional maturity.

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