Skip to main content
SFU Health and Counselling Services
Registered Clinical Counsellor

Yin and Yang Symbol
We can also look to other parts of the world - where cultures tend to be more collectivist than individualist - to see a different perspective on contradictions.

My first ever counselling session. My first professional conference presentation. Defending my thesis. Pretty much any "first day on the job" I've ever had. Those last swollen seconds between "set" and the sound of the starting gun at the 100 metre event at high school track and field meets. An odd combination of sentences, but they all illustrate a sickly sweet combination of pure excitement and sheer terror, which is something I've experienced many times. It also often strikes me that these are somewhat contradictory emotional experiences. 

I wouldn't expect that to stop any time soon. Life is full of contradictions, especially when emotions are taken into account - and careers for that matter. This isn't always easy to acknowledge, and it can be incredibly difficult to act on, but it's also an inescapable fact of life, and as such, of career development.

Students often feel bad about contradictions in their career story, I suspect because there are a lot of societal pressures that discourage the acceptance of contradiction. My hope for this article is to encourage readers to question those pressures, and encourage an attitude that tolerates and perhaps even promotes contradiction.

Have you ever wanted something and not wanted it at the same time? Felt a certain way about yourself in some situations, and oppositely in others? With enough self-awareness, you're bound to learn that even the basic qualities of your personality may fundamentally conflict with one another. I've had clients tell me they are both outgoing and shy, planful and spontaneous, stubborn and accommodating, imaginative and concrete.

This is only a problem through certain theoretical lenses. Unfortunately, many of the lenses we're encouraged to see the world through (at least here in North America) are simply not that tolerant of contradiction. The individualism underlying our busy lives is predicated on the assumption that a self is a distinct, self-sufficient, unique, and contained entity, with absolute and often measurable qualities.

"We" prefer certainty, and are usually uncomfortable with ambiguity. We prefer research that is reductionist as opposed to holistic - that is, we seek to understand things primarily by breaking them down into smaller and smaller pieces, instead of looking at the broader, more inclusive picture. As a society, we are incredibly positivist. What's that mean? Well, in order to explain that I'd have to through another unpleasant word at you - epistomology.

An epistemology is essentially a way of knowing something. It actually translates from Latin as "the study of knowledge." If you abide by a positivist epistemology, your way of knowing things is through observing them directly and measuring them. So, something is either there, or it's not - there is no in-between. There is only ever one truth, and it is observable and measurable. Of course, the scientific method is based for the most part on this way of gaining knowledge, and has of course led to countless discoveries and advances that would otherwise have been impossible.

The problem is that there are a whole bunch of situations in which it's difficult to focus down to one objective truth. What if two things are true? What if those truths oppose one another? What if they are both true at the same time? 

For these situations, we need a different way of knowing. We need an epistemology that can handle some subjectivity and multiple possible truths. Most of these ways of knowing fall under the category of post-modernism, which (to oversimplify a bit) states that knowledge is subjective. That is, the truth depends on the lens that you view it through, and is often constructed in the moment as opposed to having necessarily existed before that. Every person's experience will in some sense be fundamentally different, and they may perceive or explain the same event or phenomenon in different ways as a result. Contradictions aren't a problem at all if we acknowledge that everything depends on viewpoint in the first place.

We can also look to other parts of the world - where cultures tend to be more collectivist than individualist - to see a different perspective on contradictions. Many eastern cultures, for instance, define self-hood quite a bit differently than we do in the west. If an individualist self is a contained bubble separate from every other contained bubble, a collectivist self is a semi-permeable bubble whose boundaries include other semi-permeable bubbles in close proximity. In other words, the concept of a self in collectivist cultures includes a relational component. People in collectivist cultures tend to define themselves by their relationships with others in close social groups, while individualists usually define themselves by the qualities that separate them from others.

Just as collectivist selves can be essentially be comprised of multiple people in this regard, many eastern philosophies place high emphasis on holism and acceptance of contradiction. A great example of this is the Yin Yang symbol, as pictured above. The Yin half of the symbol is separate from the Yan half, while at the same time containing a piece of Yan within it, and vice versa. The Yin and Yang parts of the symbol don't really have meaning when considered apart from one another. They are both separate from and embodied in each other. The same and different. To reduce the Yin and Yan halves to singular entities would be to ignore the larger context that provides the symbol its ultimate meaning.

I've observed students change from feeling conflicted, torn, and adversarial in their relationships with themselves to being able to accept their own intrapersonal diversity and subjectivity, in part due to an acceptance and appreciation of their own contradictions.

So, if you're feeling uneasy about the different parts of yourself, you may want to consider asking some questions.

  • What strengths or qualities do I possess that contradict one another?

  • Under what conditions do those qualities represent a truth about myself or my career story?

  • What can I do to allow each of those qualities to thrive?

Next time, some more big words, and how they relate to your career! Did somebody say "dialectical constructivism?"

SFU Health and Counselling Services
Registered Clinical Counsellor
David Lindskoog is a Registered Clinical Counsellor at Health & Counselling who used to work as a Career Advisor with Career Services. David is passionate about suicide prevention, social justice, career and professional development concerns, and the use of role-playing games in therapy. Check out his group: Dungeons & Worry Dragons. While you're here, check out Dave's Diary! It is an ongoing series of journal entries touching on various aspects related to careers and well-being. Want to hear Dave's thoughts on a particular topic?  Send him an email, and he'll do his best to include it in his next post!  
visibility  65
Jun 3, 2013

You Might Like These... Professional Development, Personal Development, Career Exploration, Life Experience

Marble statue of Socrates
Know Thyself

So you have graduated from university and are hanging your well-earned degree on your bedroom wall, and all of  a sudden, a tiny, yet unavoidable voice in the back of your head is quietly screaming “No time to celebrate, you need to find a job!” or “I’ve got my degree…what do I do with it?!’.

Mike, author
Indigenous Stories: Mike, SFU Alumni

"I have no solid plans for the future and I love it...I know that every experience that I have had, every failed plan, was really an excellent mistake that gave me the skills I need to handle any situation that gets thrown my way in the future."  Read Mike's story of career exploration, and how to handle constant change.

picture of glichelle pondering a though
Surviving Workplace Politics

Ever been peeved with workplace politics? Have you ever been a victim of office politics? One student shares her experiences from the workplace with tips on how to survive.

 

You Might Like These... Co-op Reflections

ian and coworkers in scrubs
Ian's International Co-op in Mexico: Babies, Mothers, and Hearts

When Ian first came to SFU, Ian was a student in the Biological Sciences program. After their first year, they realized that they didn't just want to study living organisms, they wanted to learn about the human body. So at the end of their first year, they found themselves transfering to the Biomedical Physiology program.

Image of the Author
Exploring the Realities of Startup Life

When you think of a startup, does the HBO series, Silicon Valley come to mind? While the computers, parked bottoms, and long hours don’t stray too far from the truth, Melissa clears up some misconceptions about the startup life.

Frogplum Solutions Inc. Team
Read Beyond the Job Description

"When you work at a start-up, literally anything can happen." Anmol takes us into a world where content is born out of chaos, and the landscape is dynamic, creative and challenging.  Becoming an integral part of a new company and seeing your creations make an impact can be one of the most rewarding experiences.