Have you ever wished you were a small child again? Life was much simpler then wasn't it? I mean just think about a toddler's typical day for a moment:

Eat. Sleep. Poo. Play. Sorted.

But as we get older, life becomes increasingly complicated. Less black and white – a lot more grey. And in my own journey I've come to the conclusion that the more I know, the more I realize there's so much I don't know. As I get older I feel less confident about things I felt certain about previously.

I've struggled with that at times, as perhaps, like a lot of people, I prefer a degree of predictability over ambiguity.

When I started out as a professional speaker I was confused by the conflicting advice I received from people I respected, people who seemed to have opposite approaches to achieving their success. And my reading around human behaviour left me with a wide range of often contradictory approaches necessary to succeed in life.

Finding the ‘right answer’ has been a struggle, but my mate and mentor Paul once shared with me a quote from the American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald that's brought clarity to my confusion and helped me make peace with contradictions. Fitzgerald wrote:

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.

That's helped me a lot on my journey. It's helped me relax rather than wrestle with some issues. I've learnt to be more content with contradictions and to understand there are many different ways to achieve a great life. I now recognize that paradox pervades all aspects of life, sometimes more than we might appreciate at first. Let's take a moment to consider just how true that is.

As people, we're amazing and we can also be awful. We can be magnificent but also mediocre. We're both a masterpiece and a work in progress. We're capable of deep acts of compassion and appalling acts of cruelty. We're mature in one aspect of life and childish in another.

When we're young we like to look older, and then when we're old we want to look younger.

We're the best parents on the planet one day and the lousiest the next. As people, we can be quite simple to understand, and yet seemingly too complex to fully comprehend.

We are irrelevant, micro-sized specks of insignificance existing briefly in a vast universe. We're also people who are significant, whose lives matter. Our action or inaction makes a difference to the future of this planet, and to the people around us.

We achieve success by saying ‘yes’ to certain things, and yet it can also come from saying ‘no’ to other things. Success comes from a relentless and unwavering pursuit of your dream, and it comes from knowing when to quit and to try something else.

In life we're encouraged to develop our awareness and to notice things, and yet we're also warned against being distracted. We love the new and disregard the old. Then we pay thousands for what's old and pennies for what's new.

We develop technology to free up our time and make life easier, then become slaves to it and never switch off. We plan our holidays but not our lives. We're forever photographing or filming people, meals, and places, but not always taking time to simply appreciate the moment.

We need to be more mindful and take time out to reflect. Yet we constantly need to feel busy and be seen to be doing things. We dream of relaxing on a beach and then complain of boredom when we get there.

We say most things are common sense and yet rarely practise the sense that's so common. We complain about the long hours we work and then choose to work longer hours. We have children to be with them, then spend time away in order to support them.

You see, paradox is at the heart of who we are and what we do, and yet at times we strive to find the perfect path and discover the ‘right’ answer. The truth is that life is not straightforward. It's complex, messy, and not always clear cut. It's technicolour, not black and white.

The road to success, fulfilment, and happiness is not a straight one. It's full of twists and turns – even u-turns. Sometimes there's clarity, other times ambiguity. What makes you happy in your twenties could be different in your fifties. What works for you might not work for someone else. That's how life is. And that's OK. In fact, it's more than OK. It's liberating.

The American journalist Tony Schwartz wrote:

Let go of certainty. Realize its opposite isn't uncertainty. It's openness, curiosity, and a willingness to embrace paradox.

I find such an outlook exciting. It frees us from a one-dimensional and one-size-fits-all approach to life.

Our world pulsates with paradox, and, as a result, adds depth, richness, opportunity, and variety to our lives. In fact, life itself starts in a paradoxical way.

How? Let me explain.

I recall the birth of our son Matt. There was anxiety as we rushed to the hospital, and there was excitement at the anticipation of our first child. There was a deep sense of joy and there was physical pain, bordering on agony (my wife didn't feel too good either). There were machines and large forceps. There were doctors and nurses with reassuring smiles.

There was mess and there was magic. There was the natural consequence of the biological development of cells and chromosomes. And there was profound mystery that, somehow, my wife and I had created this new life. It was an everyday occurrence for millions of people throughout the world, but it felt special, spiritual, and unique to us.

That is the paradox of life, of our journeys. Don't fight it. Make peace with it.