Five Lies We Like To Believe

As terrible as it may sound, lies will always have a certain attractiveness and seductive quality. While  many truths touch us with an immediacy that disappoints us, the exact opposite happens with many lies, lies we like to believe: they give us hope  – the word ‘hope’ has a lot to do with disappointment – ​​and they even motivate us.

Of course, not all lies have these characteristics, but many do. These are the lies we tell ourselves or others and like to believe because they better suit our desires,  or they allow us to see the world in a way that is more attuned to what we hope for.

It is no coincidence that one of the kings of lies, Adolf Hitler, argued that “the bigger the lie, the more people will believe it”. In fact  , we often know that something isn’t true and yet we make an effort to see it as truth, even after it’s proven to be false. To illustrate this, below we present you a list of five such lies that we would like to believe.

Five lies we like to believe

1. One of the most classic lies: When you burst out in anger, you will feel better

This is a very widespread idea. It is said that holding in anger is toxic to us and so it is best to express your anger. Supposedly, you would feel a huge relief and calm once you yelled, slammed a fragile object against the wall, and uttered everything that was going through your mind at the time.

This is absolutely not true. Anger is addictive and expressing it without control puts you in a vicious circle where this anger is constantly fed. This means that if you don’t learn how to control your anger, you will start to feel it more and more, which in turn will make exercising self-control more and more difficult for you. It may start with yelling, but over time it leads to a person ending up in the hospital. Anger is released through relaxation, not through uncontrolled outbursts.

2. Healthy self-esteem guarantees success

Self-esteem is a concept that has received tremendous recognition in recent years. It is true that those who think positively about themselves have less difficulty with social situations and waste less of their energy on senseless fears.

However  , healthy self-esteem does not automatically lead to success, nor does a weak or inflated self-confidence lead directly to failure. History is bursting with men and women who have always doubted themselves and yet made significant contributions. It is possible that healthy self-esteem contributes to greater adaptability and therefore less interest in asking big questions or having a lot of worries, but it is never a sure signal, nor a sufficient condition.

3. ‘He/she was’ or ‘He/she was not’ ‘the love of my life’

The ‘love of my life’ is another myth that everyone wants to believe. It’s one of those lies that gives us comfort and contributes to a hopeful image of the romantic world. It is wrong to say that there is a love that fulfills everything perfectly and that for that reason it would be ‘the love of your life’.

Every choice we make implies a series of rejections. When you choose a particular job, you set aside many other types of jobs that you might have been very good at. If you choose one partner forever, you will be rejecting many other people who would make you just as happy, if not happier.

We can say that every love is imperfect. One love may have things that another does not, but will also have things that were better with another love.

4. You can achieve anything you want

The reality of life is that we don’t always get what we want, even if we put a lot of effort into it or devote most of our time to getting it. We can want something with all our heart and soul and work endlessly for it, but this does not always mean that we will get it.

Sometimes we set goals in an inappropriate way. We set our sights on objectives that are in fact impossible to achieve. We cannot and will not be able to go back in time, no matter how much we want to. Reality dictates that we cannot earn an Olympic medal in gymnastics if we have already reached a certain age and have never practiced it.

Assuming that there are challenges that will be too great for us implies that there are difficult and hopeful challenges that we cannot achieve and that we cannot enjoy despite a lot of effort.

5. Everything has a reason

It is difficult for a rational society to accept that there are questions without answers or realities without a real cause. Saying that “everything happens for a reason” is one of the most popular lies we tell ourselves because it makes us feel that reality makes sense and of itself. And that all this is controllable.

However, the truth is that the reason for things that happen or the meaning of these things is something that each of us determines for ourselves or that stops as a function of our feelings and beliefs. Nothing has an isolated reason, but people and cultures design causes and explanations for the facts of life  according to what they believe or what the principles of their beliefs are.

Images Courtesy of Helene del Maire and Henrietta Harris