The opposites of life

Sorry to get a little deep here but recently I have given some to how odd life really is. In a deeper sense, that nearly everything in life is achieved by doing the opposite of what you want. You might be asking yourself “What in heck does he mean by doing the opposite of what I want??” I’m not much of a writer nor thinker but I have experienced a lot and done a lot and have learned a lot through those experiences. We all have a similar way of becoming who we are through our experiences and recently I have come to the realization that we live in a world of opposites. Since I am not that great of a writer I’m going to just have to give a lot of examples so that you can better understand what I am trying to convey.

To receive you must first give

I grew up in a very poor family. My mother and father both worked. Actually my father worked several jobs and took advantage of every possibility to do work on the side to make money but my parents were barely able to make ends meet and always had financial troubles. We had only one old blue truck that emitted so much smoke into the air that I’m sure every car behind us couldn’t see the anything. My mother would drop my father off at work first, then take my sister and I to school, then she would go to work. After my mother got off work she would pick up my father and take him to his other job and then she would pick up my sister and me from school. We were dirt poor. However, despite barely having enough money to live my parents still gave to charity and tidings to our church. We had nothing but we still gave to those who had even less than us. To make a long story short, both my parents worked hard and had a lot of luck from up above and eventually succeeded! They boosted themselves from poor to very successful in most eyes. My point is that the success of my father’s business was due to two things: his hard work and that luck he received from up above. Because he gave, he eventually received and what he received was 100 times more than he probably ever could have imagined.
My advice to everyone is not to be selfish but to give. I believe in a God and I think that he rewards us when we give to others in ways in which we could never imagine.

To lose weight you have to eat a lot

Haven’t you heard the news??? That’s right eating more will help you lose weight! Starving yourself will not work because your body will lower its metabolism whereas if you eat often your body’s metabolism will stay high. The key here though is to eat smaller meals. They say that six small meals a day will lead to weight loss. But the point is not an essay about health but the oddity that we must to the opposite to obtain the result we want.

To make money you must first spend money

Anyone who knows a lot about business knows this firsthand, unless they were one of the unsuccessful ones of course. My father was a smart businessman and as a child he used to always tell me that companies like Microsoft are always one inch away from bankruptcy. It sounds ridiculous but it is true. Companies must always reinvest money back into inventory, research and development, equipment, etc. Companies that just pocket all the cash are doomed because business conditions will eventually change and if they didn’t invest money into their own business in the right areas then they will not be ready for the change and will be eaten alive by their competitors.
Another version of this lesson is one that I once heard on an audio tape by Robert Kiyosaki. He told the story of how the garbage disposal at his home broke and to save money he went to the local home department store, bought a new garbage disposal and tried to install it himself. The new garbage disposal cost him around $40. He spent the entire weekend trying to install it but eventually could not get it to work and finally broke down and called a professional. The professional came to his home, installed it in less than 10 minutes and charged him $30. $20 for the new disposal since the professional can buy them at discount and $10 for labor. Had Robert not been cheap he would have actually saved money and time, which in my opinion is more valuable than money any day of the week.
So if you are ever considering opening up your own business, doing home repairs, or something else, don’t always be cheap. You get what you pay for and you are not a professional at everything. Spend, but spend wisely, and you might actually save some money.

To learn to walk you must first learn to fall

If you popped out of your momma’s stomach and were already walking then I’m sorry for my incorrect assessment here, but all children start out crawling, then learn to stand a bit, and from falling down a lot they eventually learn to walk.
One thing I’d like to mention here is that this is a very Western way of thinking and is quite different from a traditional Japanese way of thinking. Of course in the West we don’t like to fail, but failure is not always a bad thing because from each failure we can learn a valuable lesson.
Whereas here in Japan process is the most important. You must first learn to master the process before you can attempt to do something. Practice, practice, practice is more of the Japanese motto and failure is not tolerated. I also have come to somewhat understand the reasoning behind this Japanese way of thinking. You must focus on form and process at all times. The result does not matter at all whereas in the West we often focus on results more than process. We don’t care how you do it as long as the result is a good one. But in Japan, even if the result is a good one, if the process was wrong then the entire thing was a failure. Once you can perfect the process then you can become a master. Once you are a master then you can extend from the original form and process, be creative and develop new ways or forms. But first you must reach the level of master.
But for purposes here I want to emphasize the Western way of though which is to succeed, many times we must first fail.

To have a woman want you, you must first run away from her

Not literally of course! But I’m sure that everyone is aware of the phrase “play hard to get”. I cannot tell you how much this applies to women and men! Women and men both are like dogs. If a dog is lying down with a ball in front of him then most likely he will ignore the ball. However, if you pick that ball up and throw it away from him then he will chase it. The same is true with dating. We want what we cannot have and we love what we have to chase. Of course, it is always nice to meet someone that you don’t have to work extra hard for, but honestly people; things that we have to work hard to get usually offer the absolute best rewards. So my advice that if you are seeking a partner than don’t be the desperate type, accepting anything that comes your way. You might score and find someone but they probably won’t be worth it! You are probably worth more than you think and people should have to work to be with you. I am not saying to play games with other peoples’ hearts, but rather don’t be so easy.
The exception to this is of course finding your soulmate. That could happen at any time and at any place without notice.

To keep your children you must first learn to let them go

When my parents finally starting giving me freedom and especially when I moved out to live on my own is when I finally gained the respect and love for my parents that they had always deserved. I did some mean and horrible things to hurt my parents as a child but once they gave me freedom and a chance to see the world myself I somehow became closer to them. Now I consider them the best people in the world. My mom as the best woman I’ve ever known and my father as TRUEST man in the world as well as my best friend. My parents eventually had to let me go but it only made us closer. Now if I ever have a serious problem or I want good advice I don’t call my drinking buddies but I call my dad because to me he is a man I respect above all other men. My advice to any adults is to give your children freedom and eventually give them the chance to live their own lives. In the end they will thank you for it and will always love you!

To truly win/gain you must first learn how to lose

This one especially applies to sports. Any good coach views a loss as an opportunity to learn. Each loss can teach a team its weaknesses as well as its strengths. Knowledge of oneself is a very important thing to learn in life. With it you can exploit your strengths. Without it you can be shocked and stunned when someone exploits your weaknesses. My advice is to take every loss or failure as an opportunity to learn about what you did wrong, your weaknesses, your strengths, what you can correct, and what you cannot. Losing is one of the best paths to improvement. Every person who truly made it in life, probably made a lot of mistakes as well. Actually, they probably made more mistakes and did more bad/wrong things than the average person. But what separated them from the average person and the reason they are not in jail is because they learned lessons from each one of their mistakes. I hope that you all make plenty of mistakes and learn from them because if you do your future will be a bright one and you will become an amazing person.

To get laid you must first not care whether or not you are going to have sex

I hate to ruin such a classy paper with such a risqué ending but we have a lot of guy readers and they need to know this one as well. Guys, women are smarter than you think and they can smell a man whore schmuck just as easily as they can smell a desperate, lonely nobody. First of all, try not to be either one of the types that I just mentioned. Second, if you are talking to a girl, on a date with a girl, or just near a girl, try your hardest not to think about how you are going to take this girl home. She will probably sense it and then you are doomed because she will think that you just want her for sex. Instead, just talk, be yourself and be FUN. You have a much better chance of getting her to like you if you are just being a fun guy with no ulterior motive rather than a man whore staring at her boobs, excessively touching her, and throwing out cheesy lines. So if the sex is not on your mind you might just get lucky!

There are probably a lot more opposites of life that I have not mentioned here but these are some of the ones I wanted to write about for now. If anyone has any that they would like to add please write them as comments below. If you are offended or do not agree with everything I have written then you are also free to write your opinion below as well. I might be the admin of this site but I am a very open-minded individual and do not believe that my opinion is always the best nor right one. Anyways, if you made if this far then thank you for reading!