You’ve reached a crossroads in your life or business. A new opportunity has come across your path, bringing the potential for either wild success or profound failure. Internally, you feel conflicted. Should you opt for stability in uncertain times, or should you venture out into the unknown?
Should you take the path of caution or the path of risk?
You understand that both caution and risk are valuable concepts. On the one hand, caution helps you make thoughtful choices that keep you safe while moving forward. On the other hand, it’s important to take risks. If you refuse to move forward despite potential danger or failure, you will never experience the thrill of surrendering to the unknown.
In our human minds, we often slip into believing that we must embrace one extreme or the other. We think we need to choose between work or relationships, long-term or short-term, quality or efficiency. We often frame our choices in terms of good and evil, black and white.
But in a healthy reality, two truths are often held in tension. Niels Bohr said, “The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth.” Often, our choice is not between two extremes: right and wrong. Instead, it’s simply a matter of learning to prioritize and balance two legitimate profound truths.
Successful life and leadership depend on balancing these opposite qualities. Rather than choosing only risk or only caution, we embrace wisdom and adventure at the same time. As we do, we live up to our full potential of creativity and joy.
Wise leaders know how to adjust the balance in response to fluctuating circumstances. A parent of young children may focus more heavily on safety, while a single person may choose to risk for a good cause. As we balance these truths in response to evolving situations, we create a flexible and powerful reality that incorporates both values at the same time.
The tension of two truths applies to many areas of our life. We balance structure and flexibility so we can provide leadership that is both strong and sensitive. We take time to laugh with our kids while not neglecting client deadlines. We emphasize timeliness in our business without sacrificing quality. We care about the way we are perceived without being enslaved by others’ opinions.
Living a healthy, balanced life is not the path of least resistance. We naturally gravitate towards a dogmatic world of black and white because it seems safer. An either-or approach feels easy and concrete. Giving us only two options to choose from, an either-or approach limits complexity.
Despite the discomfort of balancing two truths, it’s a path of growth we all need to take. This mindset shift frees us to experience liberating new realities. We will make mistakes as we live in the tension, but we will also reap the benefits. As we develop healthy balance, we’ll discover astounding new vistas of creativity and truth. We will gain momentum as we follow our dreams.
