Contradiction

The way you contain two things that should cancel each other out but do not.

A belief you hold that contradicts something else you also hold, and you have made peace with both.

When you acted against what you claimed to value, and had to understand why.

The person you are in private and the person you are in public, and the distance between them.

What you wanted and what you were willing to work for, and how those differed.

The values you espoused and the choices you made, and the gap between them.

A capacity for cruelty and a capacity for tenderness living in the same person.

The part of you that longs for solitude and the part that cannot bear it.

What you believe about how people should be treated and how you have sometimes treated them.

The ambitious self and the self that wants nothing more than to be left alone.

A love of freedom and a terror of what freedom requires.

The person who forgives easily and the person who does not forget.

What you say you believe about money, or status, or success, and how you have actually lived.

The part that wants to be known and the part that wants to remain opaque.

A commitment to honesty and the things you have not said.

How you understand yourself and how people who know you well understand you.

The self that is at home in the world and the self that has never quite arrived.

What you have settled and what you are still fighting inside.

The contradiction that is not a problem to be solved but a tension that keeps you honest.

What you would say if you were fully honest about both sides of who you are.