Truth?
In truth, there’s always an opposite truth.
Once you declare you have the truth, once you declare you have found the truth, once you declare you have discovered the truth, once you declare the truth has been revealed to you, AN OPPOSITE TRUTH EMERGES.
Take Einstein. He took a position that the universe works according to laws that are always predictable. Then he discovered that electrons didn’t conform to those laws. The irony was that Einstein discovered this opposite truth after he discovered his first truth. This was a paradox, the universe was both predictable and unpredictable.
Stand alone truth does not stand alone. Its contradiction emerges and stands next to it. Mythology is full of such comparisons. There is no devil without an angel. There is no good without evil, there is no love without hate. There is no admiration without deception.
In business, I’ve learned that for every success, there lurks somewhere the seeds of failure. My job has been to help identify what success is, and prepare business people to manage through the forces of failure that surely arise.
That’s what it means to live life with eyes wide open.
At thirty seven I began to transition out of one profession into a new one. The new one was becoming a management consultant with my own company. As contracts were signed, and more money than I ever imagined possible came in, I was the happiest I had ever been. Then the opposite of that appeared. Eventually contracts are renegotiated and terminated. This threw me in the opposite direction of joy – depression. I had reached the height of joy, and the depths of despair. What does one do in the midst of great joy and despair? You recognize that is how life works, then you manage it. You learn to not get too high or to get too low (see, more opposites).
In truth, truth is elusive. Be wise when someone tells you they have the truth. Just realize this, an opposite truth is close by.
We learn to be a sentinel on the wall of our own existence, celebrating all the good there is that surely comes our way, while at the same time, standing watch for challenges which will just as surely emerge from over the distant horizon.
If challenges exist just over the distant horizon, doesn’t that make for a gloomy existence? Please. Over the next horizon after that there exists the challenges’ opposite, resolutions.