15 Paradoxes That Will Change Your Life

some of the most mind-blowing truths in life are paradoxes stick around and i'll share 15 of my favorite ones with you so what the hell is a paradox a paradox is something that is seemingly contradictory on the surface but turns out to be true or valid when investigated more closely paradoxes have this really satisfying effect on our minds where they kind of you know twist it in a pretzel and turn it into like a figure eight or something like it's a chicken in the egg type thing going on you know in my 10 plus years

researching and studying and writing about psychology and personal development i've consistently found that some of the most important truths that we can understand about ourselves tend to be paradoxical so in this video i'm going to share 15 of the most profound paradoxes that i've come across and if you can think of some that are not mentioned in this video please post them in the comments below and uh you know we'll give it a thumbs up [Music] number one the more you try to make people like you the less they probably will one really interesting thing

about human psychology is that most communication that happens between us is not what we're actually saying it is the subtext of what we're saying it's not what i tell you it's why i told it to you curiously if i'm always telling you things because i think it will make you like me that will cause you that subtext will cause you to distrust what i'm saying now we've all had that experience where you know we've had somebody follow us around and just agree with everything we say and it is [ __ ] annoying it's like please

have an individual thought there's something about human relationships we need a little bit of friction in them for us to trust that the person is being authentic and real towards us because that's what creates a real relationship that's what makes people actually like each other authenticity paradox number two the more you fail the more likely you are to succeed it's incredible how many examples there are of this in the world that i'm not even gonna go into i mean it's logical right like the way you get good at something is by learning to do it

better and the way you learn to do it better is by doing it wrong so many people get so obsessed about avoiding failure and being successful by not failing whereas it's quite the opposite the way you become successful is by failing early failing often and failing forward and whatever [ __ ] cliche about failure there is out there paradox number three the more something scares you the more you should probably consider doing it now obviously this doesn't apply to like jumping out of a moving vehicle or getting in a wrestling match with a grizzly bear

or uh handing a handgun to a small child i don't recommend those things just because they're scary but interestingly the most important things we have to do in our lives tend to scare the [ __ ] out of us and why is that well it's because the most important things in our lives have the greatest effect on our identity and our perception of our own self-worth and so the stakes are high and whenever the stakes are high we tend to get nervous about it and so if you find that there's an area in your life

that or there's something in your life that you are consistently scared to do even though you know it's good for you probably means you should do it paradox number four the more you hate a trait in other people the more likely it is that you're avoiding that trait in yourself carl jung called this the shadow and it's basically this idea that the things that irritate us about other people are often the things that we don't like to admit about ourselves so if you're consistently annoyed at people who are indecisive it's a good chance that you

uh you don't like to admit that you're indecisive yourself or if you're always frustrated and feel as though people are disrespecting you it could easily be that you're disrespecting of other people there's this interesting mirror aspect of our psychology in that we tend to project the uncomfortable things about ourselves onto the world around us as a way of avoiding dealing with our own [ __ ] paradox number five the more connected we become with the world the more isolated we seem to feel now this is a fascinating paradox because with the glories of the internet

and the youtubes we can get in touch and be in touch with literally thousands or millions of people that's an incredible feat of technology but what we don't think about is that as soon as you are part of a group of thousands or millions of people the more insignificant any of your individual actions feel i mean it used to be back in grandpa's day like you knew the people down the street maybe you you know you read the local paper about the mayor or the city council and it felt like you could do something about

it it's like you could march down the town hall and be like i demand more parking spaces and actually have an effect on your life but today like we're aware of problems that affect the entire planet there are literally thousands of people talking about any given topic online at any given moment so it creates this sense of well what the [ __ ] can i do about it and we feel like we can do nothing paradox number six you can only have a happy relationship if you are happy being by yourself if you have some

hole in yourself some some deep-seated insecurity or piece of trauma that you're trying to cover up with with love and affection from somebody else that is going to create the basis of a toxic relationship you're going to become emotionally dependent on that other person and because you're emotionally dependent on them you're not going to have a good time it's gonna be ugly it's gonna be like a [ __ ] roller coaster high highs low lows and it's gonna go and you're gonna puke everywhere and then your partner is gonna get mad at you because you

puked on their new shoes and you're gonna feel awful because you depend on your partner for happiness and so you buy them new shoes but you don't have enough money and so you have to buy it on credit and then your partner starts cheating on you because you don't have any money and then you puke again and it's it's just it it's bad just be happy alone paradox number seven the more you learn the more you realize you don't know [ __ ] i heard a really cool analogy about this once it was like it's

called like the knowledge circle the smaller your circle of knowledge is the smaller the border is with all the things that you don't know and so when our knowledge is very small we think like oh well you know there's like two or three things that i don't understand but you know i get the basics but as you learn more and that knowledge circle expands the border of that circle with the unknown expands as well and so once you become an expert in your field you realize that there are like 250 things that you don't understand

and tons of open questions and tons of inconsistencies and tons of [ __ ] that people have gotten wrong and so you get this paradoxical effect where the more you know about a subject the more you struggle to talk about it because you realize all the things you don't know and this relates deeply with paradox number eight which is the more a person is convinced they are right the more likely they are wrong there's a thing in psychology called the dunning-kruger effect and it basically says that the less experience or expertise somebody has in a

field the more confident they they will be in their beliefs the philosopher bertrand russell once summed this up quite eloquently when he said that the problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are so sure of themselves and intelligent people so full of doubts paradox number nine the more honest you are about your faults the more people will think you're perfect there's a funny thing about vulnerability and that even though it scares the living [ __ ] out of you it makes everybody think you're courageous and and powerful so it's like standing up in

front of a bunch of people and being like yeah i'm actually pretty [ __ ] up i drink too much and puked on my partner's shoes and they broke up with me and slept with the mailman you know everybody's just like oh my god so brave so brave i i love this guy i want to hang out with him i want to be friends with him i want to babies with him it's this beautiful paradox of vulnerability that it's the more we expose our flaws the more we're we're comfortable with our shortcomings the more people

revere us and respect us paradox number 10 is something that's commonly known as the paradox of choice which is the more options you have the less satisfied you will be with each one so basically it's like if you sit down at a restaurant and they have four options you'll pick one of the four options and you'll probably be pretty satisfied with it but if the menu is like the [ __ ] cheesecake factory and there's like 45 pages of options you will spend the next 30 minutes of your life agonizing well you'll agonize why the

[ __ ] you're at the cheesecake factory but before that you will agonize whether you made the right decision or not in the psychological literature this is called the paradox of choice the more options you give people the less satisfied they are with whatever they pick and in economics is just known as good old opportunity costs when you've only got four options you're only giving up three potential choices whereas if you have 400 options now you're giving up 399 potential choices and that hurts a little bit paradox number 11 the more you force a relationship

the more likely you are to break up with a person this is uh something that i feel like everybody has to learn the hard way i certainly did when i was young and stupid you cannot force feelings in fact what you will find is that the more you try to force feelings the more you will create the opposite feeling this applies to everything like the the more you try to not feel anxious the more anxious you feel the more you try to not be angry the angrier you feel the more you try to not feel

guilty you start feeling guilty at the fact that you feel guilty and so emotions have this kind of self-perpetuating aspect about them and so if you try to force yourself to love somebody it's just going to make you love them less if you try to force yourself to trust somebody you're just reinforcing the fact that you don't trust them in the first place when it comes to emotions you have to surrender to the emotions you have to do the opposite of forcing them and in relationships this often scares the living [ __ ] out of

us because we're like well if i don't try to control the relationship maybe they'll go away and yeah maybe they will but if they don't that's what makes the relationship meaningful paradox number 12 the more you're able to love yourself the more you'll be able to love others the less you're able to love yourself the less you'll be able to love others generally speaking the emotional health of your relationships is going to be a reflection of your emotional health within yourself if you're able to be compassionate with yourself for giving of mistakes grateful for successes

then that is going to be reflected in your ability to be compassionate and grateful and forgiving of others if you're not able to do that with yourself then you're not going to be able to do it with others either generally speaking we tend to treat ourselves the way we treat others and vice versa and so if our relationships are deeply [ __ ] up and incredibly judgmental and highly controlling and constantly anxious and insecure that's probably how we are on our own as well paradox number 13 the less afraid you are of death the less

afraid you are to live life itself requires risk if you're gonna do anything meaningful or worthwhile you need to risk something maybe not risk your death but at least risk something risk money risk reputation risk your emotions risk your dreams and goals or whatever if you're not willing to risk things then you're not going to be willing to do things so the more comfortable you become with risking loss potentially risking the ultimate loss which is the loss of your life the more free you are to actually live paradox number 14 the only certainty is uncertainty

that is the only truth is our complete lack of knowledge of truth or paradox number 15 the only constant is change the world is always in flux it's always moving it's always changing anything that is true today is going to be uncertain tomorrow as we continue to grow expand and evolve and so learn to be comfortable in that uncertainty or should i say learn to be comfortable in that discomfort there's your bonus paradox if you have any others leave them in the comments below and uh by the way did you know that if you don't

want to like and subscribe a channel the best way to do that is to like and subscribe to a channel yeah yeah that's that's totally a truth of life so [ __ ] hit that button get your [ __ ] together and i'll see you in the next [Music] video