We live in a world of duality: love versus fear, right versus wrong, negative or positive and so on. Maybe that’s why one of the qualities of a ‘mature individual’ is the ability to hold and reflect upon both polarities at the same time. Many refer to this as enlightening state where you do not have to opt for one over the other, but can entertain both polarities, with curiosity and without judgment. Here are some ways of learning from the dualities in your life and how you react to them.

Spending time reflecting endlessly on what might have been, but wasn’t — or what you could have done, but didn’t — is a pointless and emotionally corrosive exercise. Going over the hurts of the past in your mind can make you suspicious and defensive in a vain attempt to prevent them reoccurring. The only sensible way forward is to let go of the past completely.

In our affluent world, it’s no longer enough to have a job; that job must be ‘meaningful’ or have some ‘larger purpose’ to make it (and us) seem valuable. Yet there is no magic to advancement and no sure route to Nirvana via the executive suite. Some jobs are, by their very nature, so humdrum and pointless to be meaningless other than as a way to earn money. Only by accepting this — and refusing to feel guilty about it — can you find peace and the courage to look elsewhere for whatever purpose or passion you feel your life needs.

Stress in small amounts is a motivator; in large amounts, it is a killer. As workplace pressures increase, creative people stop being creative: their thinking becomes overwhelmed, their creativity falls, and they try to cope by cutting corners and taking greater risks. Organizations are systematically killing the geese that used to lay them golden egg after golden egg.

Are you spending precious time and energy trying to resuscitate “dead horses” — attitudes and ideas you should have given a decent burial a long time ago? Are you telling yourself that if you just “stick it out” all will be well, and the dead horse will miraculously come back to life? When the horse dies, get off! Stop wasting time and effort carrying it around or trying to resurrect it.

Sin is too useful an idea to be confined to religion. Used according to its original meaning, it means aiming for something and missing because the wrong means were used or you weren’t skillful enough to hit the mark. That’s what many people do in the workplace: they want all the positive things like happiness, success, and warm regard by others, but they aren’t willing to do the work needed to get them. Instead, they fake it by pulling others down to make themselves look good, demanding obedience instead of winning trust, and bitching and whining rather than facing up to their own inadequacy. Facing up to your besetting sins is always the best way to make positive life and career changes. These questions can help you do it.

In Britain, to say “it’s not cricket” is to point out that the other person is not behaving honestly and fairly. Business exists on a gossamer-thin web of mutual trust in people and institutions, and demands the same attitude of sportsmanship and determination to play by the rules — and the same rigid objectivity on the part of any umpires. If this breaks down, or is ignored, business will become impossible. Maybe if business leaders learned to practice the kind of sportsmanship associated with the game of cricket we would be saved from crises and upheavals in the markets.

Why do people choose to stay late at the workplace? Is it all as a result of coercion? If so, why do some people stay voluntarily? Is it out of ambition, fear, or a warped sense of duty — or boredom with life away from the workplace? Some thoughts on why overwork is often voluntary and what to do to break yourself of the habit of working longer than you have to.

Coercive, manipulative, controlling management is everywhere today; so much so that we’ve come to see it as ‘normal’. Yet the same behavior in individuals seems to stir up the innate opposition within most people to being pushed around.

Leaders have never been more worshiped than now; paid such phenomenal salaries; had so many adulatory articles written about them. More books are written about how to be a leader, and more training courses offered on leadership, than ever before in human history. Yet the quality of leadership — in business, in government and administration, and in politics — has probably never been lower. We are certainly going to need real leaders again soon. The question is whether there are any left.