When Doing More Leads To Less

Last week, I wrote about solving problems. This week, I want to talk about a particular kind of problem that comes up in my life quite a bit – paradox.

A paradox is something that seems contrary to opinion – in this case, my opinion. Here’s an example from my own life as a student many years ago: I loved diving deeply into the study of ancient philosophy, spending many hours on my own and with others teasing out as much as I could on any given point. When it came to writing about it, my efforts would generally get a B or B+. I simply couldn’t understand it, until one day when I had to write a test while being very ill: I wrote only the bare minimum. That day I received an A+. My opinion had been to write down everything I knew; but what the teacher was looking for was a lot simpler than that, and my overloaded answers were merely confusing.

As I said, that was a very long time ago. And yet, I still occasionally fall into the trap of overdoing things – adding everything I’ve got, and then adding more, until I’m exhausted. The results are great in my opinion, but not that of others. To others, it’s too much and often confusing.

You may be like me in that way – feeling obliged to overdo things regularly. And like me, this is probably exhausting and not as fulfilling in how it’s received as you’d been expecting. Just a short while ago, I completed a test, deliberately holding back on dumping everything I knew. In the end, I was left feeling anxious that I’d missed understanding the question and might fail.

It seems that at least part of why I overdo things is to make sure I don’t fail. The odd thing is, that overdoing something means I have a greater chance of failing.

Quote of the Week

Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty.

― Frank Herbert, Dune

The paradox of choice

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Maryanne Nicholls is a Registered Psychotherapist.  To find out more, gain access to her weekly newsletter, meditations and programs, sign up at www.thejoyofliving.co . 

If you’re interested in the topic of avoiding burnout for people who do too much, you may be interested in checking out my youtube channel.