Embrace your contradictions.

I live in Colorado but don't know how to ski. I love women but never learned how to dance, which most women seem to know how to do. I like people but don't like to meet them for the first time in social situations: I'd rather get to know them one on one, personally, before encountering them in a group setting. I love the mountains but mainly from a distance. I've hiked them, but I'm no mountaineer: too little air, too much effort. Whew! But I like to know they're there. I love looking at them. I'm also fascinated by the water but can't swim.

We are all walking contradictions, and I think we should be glad.

Maybe you hate killing animals but love cheeseburgers or tacos or meatloaf. Maybe you say you like your privacy but check your cell phone every five minutes to see if someone's called you. Or you swear off bad boys that look good while treating you mean and end up with another one and feel really good about it, for now. Or you pretend to fit into a family you can't identify with, no matter how hard you try. Were you adopted? But you smile and hug and make nice, right?


We all do our best to accommodate ourselves to the lives we're given and the persons we are.

Maybe you're overweight but remember yourself as young and lithe and springy. You're an internal contradiction. You have a picture of yourself that doesn't jibe with reality but that you try to make real by buying nice clothes and carrying yourself well. You cherish the slim you but can't resist eating too much. Just like a former jock who still carries the weight but doesn't get the exercise anymore and whose heartbeat is getting way too fast. He sees himself as that quick and agile boy, but he's fooling himself.


Why not just admit that you're overweight -- or addicted to whatever or under-achieving -- and deal with it? Forget making excuses. Just say, "Hey, this is who I am, at this time of my life, and I'm dealing with it the best I can. Thanks for your concern. "

Another scenario: You're a successful man in business who hates meetings and would rather be playing video games at home by yourself in the basement rec room. Or let's suppose you're an elected official, at whatever level, who really doesn't like shaking all those hands; you keep a hand sanitizer in your office. You are passionate about your causes but, if you're honest about it, don't particularly care for people. You have a few friends, and your ideals, and that's that.

Or suppose you're a pretty but aging woman who married the up-and-coming guy and who enjoys the benefits -- a big house, a social circle, lots of nice clothes -- but who can't forget the boy who was in love with you way back when who wrote poetry and didn't amount to anything.

Where is he now? Would he be interested in getting back in touch?

Stop right there.

Yes, he might, but you would be putting in jeopardy all you've achieved. Forget it. Keep all that old stuff in your own mind and in your memory, where it belongs. You made your choices long ago, and now you need to live with them.

We are all walking contradictions. We're who we appear to be and who we think we look like and who we really are and who we might have been, all at the same time. If we're smart, we come to terms with the contradictions and live a pretty good life. If not, we end up in therapy.

The American poet Walt Whitman said, more or less, "I contradict myself. So I contradict myself. I contain multitudes." So do we all. We are not just this or that, but any number of beings that exist within ourselves at any given time. Bill Clinton was a womanizer, but he also had the best interests of his fellow citizens at heart. (Or at least I like to think so.) So did John Kennedy, who famously -- allegedly -- bedded Marilyn Monroe, while standing up for the workers of the nation. You and I may commit acts we aren't proud of, but we probably also do lots of good in our lives. We're weak and strong at the same time. Moral and sinful.

Embrace the contradictions in your life. You're not just this or that person: you're all the people you've ever been or wanted to be. You choose to be this one or that one depending on the situation. Yes, you owe something to anyone you've committed to, but you owe something to yourself, too. It's a balancing act, this living.

The reason we humans remain so interested in other humans is that we can't comfortably categorize each other (or even ourselves). We love to think we can, but as soon as we try, someone upsets our assumptions and does something out of character, something that makes us look at that person in a new light. (It might even be us.) We aren't robots, pre-programmed. We're all making our way through this confusing life together, all learning together and screwing things up together. We're constantly surprising each other, and even ourselves. We don't have a clue as to who we are, or are supposed to be, and neither do our friends and family. We're all works in progress, bundles of contradictions.

And, really, would you have it any other way?