A PARADOX is what is known as ‘an apparent contradiction’.
For example a well-known paradox is that famous statement by Oscar Wilde when he wrote “I can resist anything but temptation”.
I have written many times in this column of how the ‘thinking mind’ doesn’t serve us well and how we would be well-advised to stay away from it as often as we can, as it can impede our progress in life. A great example of this is ‘The Paradox of Exercise’ .
Take a simple situation to illustrate the point I’m making. Supposing you were lying down stretched out on the couch watching television on a lazy Sunday afternoon.
You have just consumed a fabulous Sunday lunch of a leg of Lamb and gravy with all the trimmings. You are just about to nod off into a gentle slumber.
Suddenly there is a knock at the front door and your best friend comes in full of the joys of life and asks you to go for a walk on fabulous Banna Beach and that it would be so good if the two of you could go.
If we were to be honest, our immediate reply would be “no some other time I’m too tired right now, but we’ll sit here on the couch and I’ll even make you a cup of tea.”
This is where it gets very interesting. Let’s examine the ‘thinking mind’ just at that very moment when the question was asked.
If it could talk what would it be saying – perhaps something as follows “naw I’m exhausted and I’ve no energy and I want to save my energy by lying on this very couch and if I go for a walk with my friend, I’m going to burn up even more energy and I’ll come back even more exhausted than I am now”
“Naw, I don’t wanna go – Let’s have tea!” Sound familiar?
Ok your friend persists, and won’t take ‘No’ for an answer. You reluctantly get up off the couch and put on your walking gear still bearing a lot of resistance.
Both of you head off to Banna Strand where you walk the beach for an hour, you watch and listen to the waves crashing off the shore, you smell the lovely smell of the sea, you chat with your friend and you feel the sand between your toes as you both absorb the magnificent vista that lies in front of you with a fresh breeze blowing in your face.
You say to yourself how magnificent this is and how lucky we are to have this fantastic amenity so readily available on our doorstep and how it is such a pity that more people don’t avail of it more often.
You think of all the people who have to travel such long distances to get to a beach and how we should appreciate it even more.
After the walk you feel magnificent and full of energy and you say to your friend how grateful you are for being encouraged (and prodded!) to go for the walk in the first place.
Now let’s do a reality check at this stage.
Do you or do you not have more energy having done the walk?
Answer of course – more energy.
But your ‘thinking mind’ if you re-read the paragraph above was telling you that you were going to lose energy.
The reality is when you do appropriate exercise you gain energy, not lose it, so therefore your ‘thinking mind’ is not giving you truthful information and is not serving you well.
This is the ‘Paradox of Exercise’. In cases like this, my advice is ‘don’t listen to your thinking mind’. This is another example of why JDI (Just Do It) works. – see previous article
Next week I am going to write about the great Japanese philosophy of ‘Kaizen’
• Roger Harty is a life coach and can be contacted on 087-6128336, on twitter at @Innerjoyz1 or by email rogharty@gmail.com
