The concept of “paradox” is fascinating to me. Not too far from my home, there was a neighborhood road that ended in an intersection of a well-traveled street. There was a stop sign that evidently wasn’t effective enough to prevent accidents. Beneath that stop sign, the city added an additional sign, formally painted in black letters on a white background that simply read, Look Again.
Those two words are also the invite, insight and investigative nature of paradox. It is rare, if ever, that we see truth at first glance. Danger can lurk amongst first impressions. Our vision is tainted by our experience, our season and position in life, and the 20/20 certainty we have unknowingly created in our perspectives.
This can create quite a dilemma in truly connecting to your core. The “big dig” to our core values requires a lot of shoveling, sifting and looking at what we find. That, in itself, is tedious work. Yet, a “first glance” at what we find is never enough. Deep into your dig, the search for core values ultimately teaches you to “look again” … and again, and again. It is a defining nature of the digging experience. It can be both frustrating and exhilarating all at the same time. A paradox, I suppose.
John, I love your example and the truth it represents. I think the principle of “look again” can help us find our core values, and surprisingly help us identify limiting beliefs that may be holding us back from a deep sense of joy.
“Look again’ is exactly what I did in reading Return On Integrity. I had identified my core values in an extensive process years ago, but I followed John Blumberg’s recommendation to ‘look again’ and I’m glad I did. The process reinforced my personal core values and helped me to see them in a much richer way than how I did originally.