I’m exposing you, lie!

Dear lie, you are quite unpleasant and I do not like you. I am continously falling for you – just like Billions of other people do, as well. But I cannot stand you anymore. So I’m breaking up with you.

Ok, but how to part from lies?

This is the stuff great cinema is made of: We seem to be more and more stuck in a permanent attempt to uncover the world’s biggest lies.

But had we not better start a bit smaller? Anyone who fails to change things in his own little world, might also have problems in unravelling bigger and more complex topics. Solutions can most easily be found step by step – this just does not usually happen from one moment to the next. Therefore, it might be more honest to first start paying attention to what is going on in one’s own life before playing the role of a grand detective in global matters.

I have, throughout my whole life, always had a preference for the path of efficient thinking: This has always seemed to me to constitute a guarantee for a better feeling, since one’s mind is and remains cleared up. But more than once in my life did I catch myself having gotten involved and stuck in fixed thoughts and acts. However, thanks to my puzzle-solving ambitions, I have always been able to come close enough to the solution of my problems to not be tantalized by any further doubts. So I was slowly and reliably able to convince myself bit by bit, always finding it in the end: the truth. And yes, I guess I am more interested in finding solutions than being stuck in problems – this might be kind of an egotistic “art de vivre”.

And this way of thinking and living has often helped me to reach one specific important target: Leading a fairly good life. A life that consists of diversity, beauty and lots of pleasure. So I am quite proud of having been able to reach a lot of the goals I had been aiming for. And whenever I was stuck in darkness, as a first step, I simply accepted this fact. I always knew and still know: There IS a solution for everything. But it has never crossed my mind to permanently rest “on my laurels”. Each and every day is a new chance to contemplate, which leads to another day providing totally new knowledge; and knowledge, to me, is a gift that one earns by working on it.. Thinking is and remains the prelude for all my ensuing actions.

When you are lying to yourself, for example, by saying: “This is how it is, and nothing else stands.”

Do you remember those occasions when you were completely convinced of something, so totally fixated on it, that only one single answer to the problem appeared as the ideal truth? But this constitutes thinking without ever having made a change of perspective – which might have given us alternative approaches though ..

Is it truly reasonable to see yourself as the only one, capable of finding solutions? Bear in mind that anxious feeling at the end of a day, when, subconsciously or consciously, we feel that our chosen path has not been enough – when this thing feels like it is not yet resolved. Inevidably, we are therefore plagued by: doubts. And the easiest thing is to push those stupid doubts aside – which, in turn, leads to the successive creation of constant deep patterns.

Coined by experiences, by personal convictions, and by prejudice, we increasingly trust our “intuiton” alone, which is perfectly shaped to fit for daily routine. We have kind of convinced ourselves and think that we do not need to listen to other opinions anymore. This gives us a feeling of security: Being able to shape our opinions entirely self-sufficiently, and to cling on to them – no matter what happens. It might be more clever, though, to listen to other people, too, especially when they are experts at topics that could be relevant to our problems; with the help of those experts we could actually learn how they themselves are solving their problems.

However, we do not want to feel insecure, and in failing to leave our trodden paths, we miss out on one important step: We do not question our thoughts in a critical way anymore. Criticism, after all, is bound to shake the perfect mental construct, we have put so much effort into builing. It is a fact: Criticism does hurt. And to overcome insecurities and unpleasant feelings, takes energy, as well as time. Often, we are afraid to lose ground when we dare to critisize ourselves or to allow ourselves to be critisized by others. Furthermore, we might lack time to think about a certain problem for more than 10 minutes – and so we put an actually unsolved problem aside very quickly and stereotypically. This is fatal, whenever the problem is similar to other problems we have had in the past, and we then fail to recognize it as a chain: the pattern deepens.

Nothing can be more appeasing than getting one’s opinion acknowledged by a crowd of friends who do not question our opinions. It seems as though we consider ourselves as the best experts alive – and nobody else’s opinion can live up to our’s.

Thinking in stereotypical structures

Thinking in sterotype structures produces and transfigures self-deception – and if there is no feedback and change of perspective from outside, we cannot expect any corrections.

By thinking stereotypically, you might let one and the some problem run its course throughout your whole life. Case in point: Women who keep choosing the same ‘bad boy’ type as their partners for ages. 2016 is as bad as 2015, 2014, 2013 and all the other years in the past seem to be quite similar. They are still “in the red” when drawing their balance and – with reference to the example from before: They are still liaised with the exact same assholes – just in different bodies, in a different year.

The patterns of behaviour and decisions making are pre-programmed and result in a lack of imagination for new creations. In missing out on any new perspectives and alternatives, one remains wallowing in the swamps. And if you do not recognize the pattern behind it, there is hardly any escape and, over time, it will only get harder to pierce.

It seems as if our lives were remotely controlled, guided by a certain faith in this thing called destiny, and that our experiences result from lucky or bad circumstances. We have all heard those stereotypical excuses:

• “It’s just the way it is.”
• “I don’t know, but it always seems to happen to me only.”
• “You are lucky – must be my sign, why I am not.” etc. etc. etc.

Limiting ourselves

Let us take the risk of reviewing our lives:

• Has there been any fundamental change?
• Is there any positive progress?
• Have we been able to realize or even come anywhere near the dreams we had 10 or 20 years ago?
•  Or did we give them up?

If we have not reached any of the goals we had, the probability is high that we are kind of possessed by our traditional structures, in making decisions. In fact, it would not hurt if we lifted our heads out of the sand and looked deeper into that matter. It would seem to be the lesser evil, compared to being stuck in the same swamp for the next 10 years without any prospect of seeing things clearly. That way, our souls also remain blurry, and this affects our daily life.

What does success mean to me?

Not necessarily having a plus in material things but having made progress by developing within ourselves and continuing to do so rigorously. It feels good! And it is worth the effort, to aim for this pleasant feeling, based on clear facts. These are the moments of happiness. And this is what I call being a successful person.

Last words

In the next column I will deeply talk about how it might be possible to increase one’s problem solving competences.

I wish to point out, that this column is solely meant to serve as an inspiration source and to hopefully sensitize to the possibility of making one’s thinking and acting more conscious through new approaches. Nobody should feel like they are being talked down to.

Finally, I would like to thank you very much for your attention and see you soon!

Yours – always passionately trying to find the truth -,

Anna D.

Credits

Image	Title	Author	License
	You can lie, but you can’t change the truth.	Patryk Kopaczynski	CC BY-SA 4.0