Being Human: The Counter-Intuitive Truths

Being a human isn’t simple, easy, or even intuitive. We all go about it, pretending we know how to do it, and assuming that everyone else around us has it figured out. We all struggle, but we never talk about the struggle (because we don’t talk about Fight Club).

Here are a few of the counter-intuitive hard truths of life:

→ Doing hard things in the moment makes life easier overall.

→ The cure for the pain is in the pain.

→ There is no arrival (it is not the job, not the true love, not your age, or the amount of money you make). It’s ALL a journey until you die.

→ We all want freedom, but we actually require structure to create lives of joy and meaning.

→ We perceive being vulnerable as weak, when in reality, it is one of the greatest accesses to strength and courage that we have.

→ The more you try to control things (and people), the less control you have in your life.

→ We think we don’t have enough time to take care of ourselves and meet our needs intentionally, but in reality, doing so creates more time in our lives.

→ The more you avoid emotional pain, the more pain you actually suffer.

→ We think we have to be perfect to be successful, but all successful people have actually embraced their imperfections and are successful because of them (not in spite of them).

→ Disappointing others is required to be true to yourself.

→ Not making a choice is a choice, and has the same consequences as making a choice.

→ The more we try to get others to like us, the less likable we are.

When embraced with a playful heart, and sense of humor, these truths can make life fun. These exact things are what make life the adventure that it is (or, as my son would say, life is like a video game where you keep getting to fight bosses and level up).

As an avid backpacker and mountaineer, I see life as an epic adventure where I keep investing in better and better gear and tools and keep scaling higher and higher mountains. The gear and tools of life that I invest in include skills like:

⚙️ Sitting with my pain.

⚙️ Being comfortable being uncomfortable

⚙️ Not taking things personally

⚙️ Being the watcher of my thoughts and feelings

⚙️ Meditation

⚙️ Curiosity

⚙️ Accurate self-assessment

⚙️ Speaking for my emotions, not from my emotions

⚙️ Embracing failure (as a necessary part of success)

⚙️ Understanding that conflict isn’t inherently negative

As the beloved Mary Poppins once said, “In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun. Find the fun, and snap, the job’s a game.” I find a deep truth in this statement, and I would broaden this truth into my own statement about life: “In all of life that we must learn, there is an element of fun. Find the fun, and snap, life’s an adventure.”