Duality.

Duality is the concept of opposites, opposing forces at work, contrasting elements. There is light and dark, good and evil, abundance and scarcity, all happening at once.

Why is it such a big deal when we clean our house up spotless? We’re so proud. It feels so good.

Why does an issue with our teenager send us into the emotional abyss? We are scared to death, confused, maybe terribly disappointed.

It’s because we have experienced the stark difference. Most of the time, our house is a cluttered mess. It’s a perhaps rare joy to see it clean! For the first 12 years or so, our kids were little, noisy delights. It kills us when they struggle.

I’ve been thinking about a comment I read on a blogger’s post recently…

“This story has no substance. You talk about the same thing over and over, but you never get to anything useful or meaningful.”

I started wondering if what I write is useful or meaningful. I wondered, too, if that blogger took that personally and questioned her own writing. Then, I finally wondered why that cretin felt the need to say that and didn’t just unfollow or keep scrolling.

Then I thought…duality.

I have posted a lot lately about cleaning out drawers and cabinets, because I have had extraordinarily messy drawers and cabinets.

I have written about staying home, reading, drinking coffee, and caring for myself, because I have lived a fast life for a long time that primarily focused on delighting other people.

I have written about cooking good food and going on little excursions around town with my daughter, because I’ve eaten restaurant food on the fly and haven’t leisurely gone anywhere with her on a regular basis.

All these things seem so novel, so unconventional, so exciting to me, because they are THE OPPOSITE of what I have customarily experienced for so long! It’s duality at work!

Recognizing duality in life, in my never so humble opinion, means 3 things for us…

We should celebrate everything! My small victory means I am challenging the usual and striving for the opposite. (Y’all, I’ve been taking my vitamins in the morning AND at night, plus I’ve been doing a whole skin care routine every evening for 10 days now! Wahoo!). What you think is a silly, insignificant accomplishment for someone else is HUGE to them. They are shifting from the customary to the new!

We should stop being so judge-y. Other folks have to work through their crap. They have to go through the lows to appreciate the highs. People are generally ALWAYS working to achieve the opposite of what they know or have found to be undesirable. The shoes they have walked in surely don’t fit my feet, and the glasses they look through have seen things mine ain’t seen.

We shouldn’t yuck another person’s yum. If Sister Girl studies world religions and hardly ever listens to country music, good. She’s learning and exploring new things that intrigue her. If Honey Chick posts Bible verses and follows Lainey Wilson from venue to venue, don’t say a word. She’s chasing the opposite of what she otherwise finds unsavory, I promise.

We like things that resonate with us. We get down with what fits in the space toward which our own pendulums have swung.

It’s when we run across something on an extreme opposite of ours that we make a face, have an opinion, or leave a critical comment.

Think about duality. Roll with it. Watch how it is actively at work in your life. It’s why you get mad. It’s why you’re delighted. It’s what motivates you to do better. It’s what makes you discerning.

Right now, I’m loving building a life of opposites. That was my entire motivation for retirement, and to watch it happen, is a marvel to me.

So I’ll keep posting about cooking while other people look at it as a dreaded obligation. I’ll keep celebrating my consistent make-up removal and nightly use of Oil of Olay Regenerist with Retinol 24 while others find evening face-washing totally normal and humdrum.

(Just don’t go get bangs! We all know that thinking bangs will break us from the norm is NOT IT and completely flawed logic when it comes to duality.)

Have the courage to flip the script, Y’all. And stay out of the way with your lips zipped while others are out script flipping. Duality is at play.

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