The Greek myth of Oedipus is a controversial tale filled with many great lessons. According to the myth, the king and queen of Thebes, Laius and Jocasta received a terrible prophecy from the Oracle of Delphi with the birth of their son. According to the prophecy, their son will kill his father and marry his mother.
Horrified by the prophecy they decided to abandon their son to die, ensuring his death, they pierce his ankles and tells a servant to leave him on the mountain side. The servant, however, could not bear to abandon the child and gives it to a nearby shepherd, who takes the child to the king and queen, Polybus and Merope, of Corinth, naming him Oedipus and raising him as their own.
Unaware of being adopted, Oedipus is told by a drunkard that he is not the biological son of the king and queen. Troubled by this revelation he consults the Oracle of Delphi, who does not answer his question, but repeats the prophecy of his birth.
Shocked and believing that Polybus and Merope are his true parents, he flees Corinth to avoid the prophecy. While fleeing Corinth, he encounters an old man and his entourage on the road, after a heated argument Oedipus kills the old man, unaware the man being Laius.
Arriving in Thebes, he encounters a Sphinx who devoured anyone unable to solve her riddle:
“What walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon and three legs in the evening?”
Oedipus correctly answers, “A human”. Defeated, the Sphinx kills herself and the grateful Thebans declare Oedipus king. He marries the widowed Queen Jocasta, and thus unknowingly fulfills the second half of the prophecy.
Years later, Thebes is struck by a terrible plague, with the Oracle claiming it will only end when Laius’ murderer is punished. Oedipus launches an investigation to save his city. Slowly, the truth is revealed: Laius was his father, Jocasta his mother and the prophecy has been fulfilled.
Horrorstruck, Jocasta hangs herself, and Oedipus, overwhelmed with guilt, blinds himself with her brooch pins. Choosing exile, he wanders the Greek countryside as a broken man, seeking to atone for his sins.
Avoiding the Truth
The myth reflects a universal truth, avoiding painful realities often causes more harm in the long-term than facing them directly in the short-term and that our best intentions can lead to unintended consequences, and how confronting the truth, no matter how painful, is the only path to redemption.
However, it is not only a path to redemption, but also to leading a fulfilled life. Most people want to be happy, have great relationships, to not worry about money and doing something that they genuinely enjoy. We never say what problems we are willing to have in our lives, instead we only accept the problems dealt us and then justify it by attributing it to fate that we aren’t supposed to be happy or have a great relationships or be financially independent.
We accept our circumstances as fate, suffer through problems and pain that draws the life from us and live from one happy moment to the next and try to tell ourselves that this is how our lives are predestined to be. We talk to other people and learn that their lives are in some shape or form the same as ours and just accept it as that, “this is life”. Or we read some quote or a book that says that life is supposed to be difficult, and that difficulty builds character, and it is in the building of our character where we find growth, fulfillment and happiness. This keeps us in deeply unhappy relationships and jobs that rob us of true purpose.
While true to a certain extent, the principle of finding fulfillment in hardship is not by weathering the same shitty, unhappy and unfulfilling circumstances each and every day and telling yourself you can do this because you can do hard things, it is by being painfully honest with yourself and dealing with the painful truth and the consequences thereof.
In real life, we don’t have Sphinxes and Oracles, but we do encounter difficult truths – whether about ourselves, relationships or the world around us. Most people ignore them, they have become comfortable with being uncomfortable in a bad way, or they are aware of the truth but do not confront it. The myth of Oedipus suggests that growth and redemption can only come through honest confrontation with reality, no matter how much it hurts.
It is a reminder that the hardest path is facing the truth and bearing the weight of what has to be done to improve our lives and that this is the only way to move toward genuine healing and happiness.
“growth and redemption can only come through honest confrontation with reality, no matter how much it hurts.”
Good Intentions, Unintended Harm
As Oedipus spends his life trying to escape the prophecy, he actually gets closer to it. We do the same in life, we chase external achievements and distractions to fill an internal void, only to feel more lost.
We mostly do this because we are scared of being brutally honest with ourselves and those around us and the consequences it might bear. We get stuck in life draining careers and unhappy marriages, may it be due to the sunken cost principle, or because we made a commitment to achieve some goal or simply because we feel too bad to be honest with ourselves and our colleagues and partners.
People stay in jobs they hate because the “others need them”, forgetting that they need themselves more for themselves and for those they care about. We stay in unhappy marriages because we think by staying together might shield others from the pain of the alternative, while unspoken pain tends to fester and create a misunderstanding of love and relationships.
At the end we must be brutally honest with ourselves, can we influence our jobs, relationships and circumstances to improve, or is it time for change to enact improvement? No matter the path you take, it requires a deep truthful confrontation with reality.
It is only when we are truly willing to confront reality that the principle of true growth and the honest pursuit of happiness and fulfillment through hardship starts to ring true.
Growth
The truth is that what we want from life, comes with some sort of suffering. A toned and fit physique requires pushing yourself in the gym. Running a marathon requires early mornings and sore legs. Starting a company and doing your own thing requires the sacrifice of time and a stress-free life.
Everything has a trade-off, but the trade-off to life shouldn’t be being unhappy and unsatisfied with life. Happiness isn’t a goal, doing what needs to be done to be happy is the goal, and that is an iterative process.
Modern culture has become a cesspool of self-help afficionado’s that tell us that failure is the result of us not believing in ourselves enough and all you need to do is be determined enough and have enough courage. That’s bullshit, sometimes things fail, no matter how hard we try or how many affirmations you shout in the mirror or how hard you manifest an outcome. Failure is part of life, it is shit, it is hard, and it is inconvenient.
Not learning from your failures and doing the same thing over and over again is your fault, and if you then continually fail, it’s on you. Einstein famously said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. What always surprises me is how we are capable of accepting failure in one part of our life, but not another. Failure is present everywhere, in all aspects of our lives.
Failure isn’t final. Not accepting it or not learning from it is though. You will get stuck in a downward spiral, and you will drag everyone you care about, down with you.
Fulfillment often lies not in avoiding pain or chasing happiness, but in the courage to face life’s hardest truths, embrace change, and find meaning in the struggle itself.
Evolvate 
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