Some paradoxes of the human condition

When happiness cannot exist without suffering, joy cannot exist without pain, learning cannot exist without mistakes, success cannot exist without failure, excitement cannot exist without tedium, we balk and groan when we are forced to confront the latter.

When virtually everything in our lives requires a healthy balance in order to optimize our mental and physical well-being, our culture inculcates within us a desire to constantly strive for more or better, and never enough.  

When cultivation of the mind is the only pathway towards a life well lived, we are ensnared in a perpetual conflict with the self, where our rational thoughts are often overridden by our prewired instincts and obstinate emotions.

When most of us already understand the specific factors that contribute to a truly happy and fulfilling life, we constantly sabotage ourselves, often unknowingly. 

When our collective prosperity as a species demands that we cooperate and establish unity, we obstreperously antagonize, degrade, and dehumanize one another by waging brutal wars and manufacturing senseless conflicts. 

When we are hyper-aware of the present status quo and will do anything to defend it, what actually kills us in the end is what seeks to harm us not in the present, but in the distant future. They are the truly malevolent forces within this world that will creep upon us when we least expect it—those that insidiously lurk far beneath the surface, waiting for the opportune moment to strike.