How do you find a way to balance ambition with contentment?

Justice with mercy?

Empathy with strength?

The needs of the one with the needs of the many?

How do you fully enjoy this moment and also want to make the next one better?

How do you learn to fully accept yourself as you are but also strive to be more?

How do you fully embrace the beauty of life but also want to build yourself a more beautiful life?

Honestly, I wish I knew.

What I do know is that one of the trickiest things to navigate in this life is the way it is filled with what you might call “necessary tensions.” Necessary tensions are the contrasts, the polarities, the competing interests and sometimes just outright contradictions in what we believe and in how we live.

And I’m not talking about outward tensions between you and me. Of course those are there—in everything from our dearest relationships to our politics. Those are the conflicts that occur when I’m pulling one way and you're pulling another. But I’m convinced the REAL source of conflict in this life is not the tug of war between you and me but the tug of war between me and me, and the conflict between you and you.

Now, you might be tempted to `say, “Maybe YOU are in conflict Dean but I am not.” But that simply isn’t true. And there’s no reason to get defensive about it because the tensions in us aren’t there because we’re imperfect. They’re there because we’re human. They exist because human nature is mindbogglingly complex and multifaceted and sometimes … hell, who are we kidding … just about every day some of those facets are competing with one another.

I don’t know how to resolve those contradictions. I’m not sure they can be resolved or even should be. I only know this … that my life changed dramatically for the better once I finally accepted them, and then it improved even more once I began to appreciate them.

Not solved. At first, just tolerated. Then, accepted. Finally, appreciated.

Art and artists are really useful when it comes to this. Good art is always stirring us and making us look at ourselves, laugh at ourselves, and showing us the beauty and humanity inherent in our own inconsistencies. So next time you see an artist give them a hug and say, “thanks for reminding me how complex and conflicted I am.

So what’s my point? Certainly I don’t have a solution. I only hope—especially right at this particular moment—we can all find it in our hearts to accept and forgive our own internal conflicts and inconsistencies, and then find it in our hearts to accept and forgive each other’s.

Truth is, if we dig deep enough we’ll find you’re not all red and your neighbor is not all blue. I always want what’s best for me, but I also really y do want what’s best for everyone. I need more rest and I need more exercise. I want to learn and grow and become and create a better future, but today I also want to just be, and sit by my fire, and learn to be fully content with everything just as it is, and find my joy.

I don’t know how to resolve those tensions in me, but I can learn to accept them and then appreciate them, and then somewhere in this tangled up soul of mine I’m holding out hope that I can use them to build myself a beautiful life.