The Greatest Paradox To Growth and Fulfillment
By Matthew D. Barkdull, MS, MBA, LMFT, MEDFT
The years between 2006 and 2009 will go down in my history as the most intense and volatile season in my life. I cannot imagine anything, nor dare comprehend a more burning crucible than those burdensome and intense years.
In 2006, just a year following the largest business promotion in my life up to that point, my world turned upside down. While signs of something wrong were somewhat evident for about a year, the first nuclear warhead was dropped when my hematologist contacted me. I still remember his grave voice over the line. As a direct result of my severe hemophilia B diagnosis at birth, I contracted hepatitis C due to tainted factor injections during the mid to late 1980s. The doctor reported that hepatitis had now caused cirrhosis and scarring on my liver and invasive treatment was required to save the organ. There was a problem, however. The treatment was potent on the body and would likely destroy my transplanted kidney my father donated 16 years earlier. I fought with the doctor, indicating that there had to be a different alternative. “Sorry, Matt. I’m afraid we have no other options.” His response was empathetic but those words stung like a hornet. I was the sole provider and my wife and I were raising three young daughters—ages six, three, and one. How could we possibly do this?
This proved to be just the beginning of many warheads yet to drop. I could fill volumes of all that occurred but, to be brief, not only did my kidney fail as predicted, but that kidney turned out to be full of cancer—renal cell carcinoma. The kidney was surgically removed and I was completely reliant on dialysis treatments every other day at a clinic in the next county. Even worse, doctors were unsure if they were able to get all the cancer, so I couldn’t seek out a kidney transplant for three years. One by one, other systems started shutting down. I developed a bad case of pneumonia and experienced respiratory failure on two different occasions requiring doctors to induce a coma each time so they could ventilate and give my lungs time to heal. On top of everything else, if you can believe it, new symptoms surfaced that worried my treatment team including grand mal seizures, paralysis, dangerously high blood pressure, anemia, and crushing fatigue. The diagnosis? West Nile Virus, one of the most severe forms that went straight to my brain. Some infected, stray mosquito decided to feast upon my luscious blood! It came to the point that no one knew which symptom came from which malady.
I don’t share these intimate details to be pitied. I share them to make a point—one of the greatest principles that I believe exists. A principle that I’ve dedicated my life researching and applying to every person I treat in clinical practice. In fact, this is a principle so fascinating, I’ve dubbed it the greatest of all paradoxes. To adequately explain this principle, I have to finish my story.
I have been fortunate to have been born into a large family with parents who have a depth of knowledge and wisdom that astound me even now. I’ve always hoped I could one day be at least an equal. Seeing me struggle so hard during the apex of my crucible, not to mention the corresponding trials my wife and family were experiencing, Dad and Mom came by to visit. After some small talk, Dad stepped forward and shared a thought that has never left me. “Matt, it seems to me that you’re advancing faster in your professional career right now than you would be if you were able to work.” I remember staring at him blankly, considering the absurdity of the idea. “How could I be advancing faster in my career? I’m on long-term disability!” I thought. “I live in a broken body that can barely sustain life!” He admitted his uncertainty about how everything would come together but he was adamant that I could expect this outcome in the near future. “It’s a law,” he said. “The greater the pressure, resistance, and opposing forces, the greater the strength. If harnessed correctly, the outcome is more polished and refined. How could you not be advancing faster in your career?”
Years later, while doing research on this subject, I came across a poem entitled “Good Timber” by Douglas Malloch that taught this very same principle.
The tree that never had to fight
For sun and sky and air and light,
But stood out in the open plain
And always got its share of rain,
Never became a forest king
But lived and died a scrubby thing.
The man who never had to toil
To gain and farm his patch of soil,
Who never had to win his share
Of sun and sky and light and air,
Never became a mighty man
But lived and died as he began.
Good timber does not grow with ease:
The stronger wind, the stronger trees;
The further sky, the greater length;
The more the storm, the more the strength.
By sun and cold, by rain and snow,
In trees and men good timbers grow.
Where thickest lies the forest growth,
We find the patriarchs of both.
And they hold counsel with the stars
Whose broken branches show the scars
Of many winds and much of strife.
This is the common law of life.
The greatest of all paradoxes, the grandest of all principles is found in an idea that many philosophers, religious texts, scientists, and even engineers have coined differently. For the purpose of this article, I’ll simply call it the law of opposition. The greater the opposition, the greater the power upon the agent it is acting upon. Like a crucible, with the chaos, burning, and intensity that it inflicts, the final result is an agent that is powerfully tough and unbreakable. The crucible refines and violently twists off the dross, perfecting the agent for its intended purpose. What’s the paradox? It’s simply this: We can’t move forward without moving backwards! Another way this principle can be stated is that we can’t expect to progress (the desired outcome) without first paying the price (the opposition). This principle, as powerful as it is, will always lie dormant in a state of inertia unless something or someone harnesses, acts upon, and channels it by putting forth governing laws that propel it to correct action. Let me share with you how my wife pulled me out of my own inertia.
Shortly after my father taught me the principle of opposition and predicting an advancement in my career, things turned for the worse and I was practically bed ridden. My wife became a nurse of sorts and always brought me my breakfast in bed. I hardly took a bite due to feeling so awful. I found it difficult to bathe as well and often lounged around in pajamas, getting out of bed later in the afternoon unless I needed to be at dialysis.
One day, my wife sat down at the edge of my bed and had a blunt but concerned conversation with me that changed the course of my prognosis. “Matt, you’re not giving your body a chance. You’re not trying. I understand your condition but you can’t expect to heal if you don’t put some ounce of muscle into your recovery. This is what I’m going to ask you to do for me. I’ll bring you breakfast every morning. I want you to eat every bite. I expect you to be out of bed at noon, bathe, and put on clean clothes each day. Finally, I want you to come downstairs and join the rest of the family on the couch. You don’t have to do anything, but I want you to be with us.”
To this day, I’m not sure why those stern but loving words from my wife had such an impact upon me. As she was talking, I knew I couldn’t be defensive or lay out the reasons why I couldn’t fulfill her requests. Just like turning a key and igniting a vehicle to life, I made a commitment to give my body a chance. The task was often extraordinarily difficult. While I got used to eating, getting in and out of the shower was exhausting let alone dressing and going downstairs. I would often close my eyes afterwards but I kept doing it and each time it would get a little easier. What my wife had taught me was how to harness the opposition I was experiencing and, by utilizing correct laws and principles, channeling it towards my desired outcome—improving my current health circumstances. All of this could not have been possible without the patient yet persistent guidance of a loving spouse and by her introducing another principle that is beyond the scope of this article—the principle of transcendence, complimentary to everything that has been discussed.
As an ending to this story, three years after my crucible began, I finally received another kidney transplant by a loving sister. My liver healed, the West Nile virus cleared, and cancer was no longer detected in my body. Eight months later after I started working again, I was offered another position in the same company that promoted me to a management role with a nice raise to boot.
It is not my intention to paint a simplistic picture with a fairy-tale ending although I was remarkably blessed with the outcomes just illustrated. Nothing was easy and it was a fight to the end. I’m not necessarily even saying to expect jaw-dropping results. Still, the evidence and laws that support the law of opposition with its activating agents must not be treated lightly. Evidence of the laws are found everywhere including in nature, exercise science, psychology, biology, philosophy, physics, and a number of other fields of science and even religion. I invite readers to reflect upon the opposition that’s being played out in their lives, reframing the struggle as an opportunity, and discovering the activating laws that will harness and channel opposition into desired outcomes. Truly, one cannot move forward without moving backwards—the greatest of all paradoxes!
