How I Deal with Contradictions

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It was 2003/2004, I was 11 years old and bought an English to Bangla dictionary for the first time. One day while looking around the back pages I found there was a chapter for proverbs. I found these very interesting and started reading them instantly. At one point I found these two proverbs on two opposite pages.

• Something is better than nothing(In Bangla: নেই মামার চেয়ে কানা মামা ভালো)
• Nothing is better than something(In Bangla: দুষ্ট গরুর চেয়ে শূন্য গোয়াল ভালো)
  This is not the first time, I encountered such contradictions. The list is very long.
• Some will say “enjoy life why so serious.” Other says “build carrier at anyhow.”
• “Money is numbers, and numbers never end. If it takes money to be happy, your search for happiness will never end.”― Bob Marley
• Some says “money does not matter”, some say you cannot buy happiness without money, and it is better to cry inside Mercedes instead of a hut.
  When I see social media post on a topic, I agree with the points. Later I see counterarguments, and I also agree with that. Then I ask myself which one is true. Sometimes I find both are true with their perspective, and sometimes true partially.

There is no absolute truth or lie in the world; everything is relative. What is suitable for some people is bad for others. What is good for now might be bad for a few days later. What is good for one country is not suitable for another country. So it is better not to compare everything.

• Money cannot buy happiness for some people, but it does buy happiness for others.
• Whether money brings happiness or not depends on how you define your happiness; not how Bob Marley defined his happiness. Are you happy buying a new iPhone? Then it surely does.

Then which one do I follow? The one that works best for me, not the one that works best for others. So it’s your life. You should think for yourself. If you got good advice from other people and directly apply that in your life and ended up with bad results that are not the fault of other people. That identifies that you are not living your life. You are living other people’s life. If you do, you put a thought into the advice and change it according to your requirements. So my final word would be, take what works for you.

-Shuvangkar Das, Potsdam, New York

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