Lies to stop believing?
The personal development world, in particular, makes many claims about the kind of life that is possible for us, if we follow certain routes, or buy certain books/workshops/coaching, etc.. Some of these claims speak directly to beliefs that we hold about life, too.
There’s nothing wrong with aspirations, or wanting ‘a better life’, but I think we have come to hold these aspirations as expectations – the idea that we are somehow entitled to them, and that, if only we do the right thing, those expectations will come true.
I call these claims “lies to stop believing”, because I have found, both in my own life, and those of the people with whom I work, that there is a lot of suffering caused by the disappointment when these expectations aren’t met.
What are some of these “lies”?
Some day, my prince(ss) will come. Not necessarily – many people face a lifetime of not meeting their prince or princess. An increasing number of us might have to face a future of growing old alone, and accept that there isn’t “someone out there, just for me”.
You can make your dreams come true. You probably can’t. This is one of the ones I hear and read about most often, and perhaps one of the most insidious. Yes, we can aspire to fulfil our dreams, but we need to be grounded in the reality that most of us aren’t going to be able to have the ‘life we always dreamed of’.
Things will get better. No, they might not. This might be ‘as good as it gets’.
If you build it, they will come. Again, they might not.
I deserve better than this. Perhaps, most harshly of all, why? Deserving is absolutely tied up with entitlement, and it’s a myth that I deserve anything – it’s an act of sheer good fortune that I have the comfortable life I have, and am not living on the streets of Rio de Janeiro, or languishing in a prison-cell in Baghdad.
Sorry to be so blunt, but there it is – life is unfair. The good guy doesn’t always get the girl, and the bad guy sometimes wins. We can have our dreams, do our affirmations, practice chanting and meditating on our goals, do the work, network, go on plenty of dates, and still not get what we long for.
This might sound negative, defeatist even, especially from a coach, but I want to suggest that acceptance of the possibility that we might not get what we long for is also a route to peace.
When I accept that life isn’t necessarily going to bring me what I long for (of course it might, but it equally might not), then I have the possibility to ask different questions about life, and to navigate with what is, rather than the striving for, and pain of disappointment if I don’t get, what I yearn for.
What if I am single for the rest of my days? What if I never write that book I’ve been meaning to write? What if my life never gets any “better” than this? What then?
For me, this is deeply connected with the Buddhist ideals of non-attachment. Have goals, by all means. Apply yourself to them with passion and zeal. But the real practice is to accept that you might not live the life you expect to lead, or feel entitled to have. And, yes, there is a paradox there.
In addition, there are many other dimensions to this – the implications for others when we give up our entitlement, the cultural idea that we are somehow responsible or, worse, actually “to blame” if we don’t have a perfect life (unfortunately sometimes disseminated by parts of the personal development world), etc, and, as I said this is a theme I will be returning to frequently.
For now, though, some reflections:
What “lies” do you believe?
What has been the cost to you of those?
What happens when you accept that you might not get what you want (or what you think you deserve)?
What then?
Quotes
Sometimes what seems like surrender isn’t surrender at all. It’s about what’s going on in our hearts. About seeing clearly the way life is and accepting it and being true to it, whatever the pain, because the pain of not being true to it is far, far greater.
Nicholas Evans, The Horse Whisperer
You are not a precious and unique snowflake; you are the same decaying organic matter as everything else.
Tyler Durden in Fight Club
Ah that is my little ray of sunshine in the morning that I love so well.
Definitely revealing the observer that you are. For me there is a distinction between equanimity or non-attachment and what you are speaking to Aboodi. In my reading of your post it is more of an anti-optimism stance rather than one of non-attachment. Along the lines of: “Hey, all you deluded bone heads, dont you get it?” You seem in reaction to the hope and optimism that you find. This comes out for me when you declare that “Life is unfair” For me life is just life, it is neither fair nor unfair, it just is. This would be more of an equanimous view in my thinking.
Thanks for the conversation.
Curtis
Thanks for the distinctions, there, Curtis, and for pointing out what I didn’t see in all of this, which was my own observer!
“Let me tell you the truth: The truth is … what is. And what should be is a fantasy; a terrible, terrible lie that someone gave the people long ago.”
– Lenny Bruce
Is life fair? No but it *is* transient so all good fortune and all suffering have an end which — in the end — makes life incredibly fair.
The idea of fairness comes from comparison of what you have in relation to what others have and what you think you *should* have. Here the cycle of entitlement begins as people with supposedly less move towards a constant feeling or mood of resentment.
This makes a lot of sense to me. Constantly wanting life to be better can lead to constant disappointment. Accepting how life is can be hard work and painful, but once achieved can be quite liberating.
Oddly, it doesn’t prevent aspirations, but makes them far more meaningful.
I’m looking forward to reading more of your thoughts on this, Bood. It’s a philosophy I would have rejected until fairly recently, but I’m very comfortable with exploring it further now.
Funny isn’t it? When the economy is booming (or seeming to be) everyone writes articles about how you can have everything you want. When there’s a depression, everyone starts to write articles about how you can’t have everything you want.
The real answer is to forget about what you want, and to start asking what God wants instead.
An interesting perspective, thank you, Mark.
For the non-religious, that could be phrased as ‘what am I here to do?’, or ‘how can I serve?’.
Thanks for making me think about this Aboodi.
I think about a year ago i might have fully agreed with you, and I have shifted…
I believe that i may spend the rest of my life single and I will do what i can to be ready to welcome a relationship…
I believe that there are some goals i may never achieve and yet i will strive for goals that may seem unattainable …
I believe that i’m both eminently valuable and a flawed human being…
And i believe that life gives us what it does and if we can see that as a gift and learn from and with it we can both grow and be happier than if we see it as a struggle…. And at the same time we co-create our own lives, not in the easy – lets order my happiness at the great amazon.com of the universe, but in how we experience it, what we believe and what we value… and how we act and are as a result…
And i think you reminded me of this both and … often… so curious where that part of you was as you wrote this
Ah well, I never said I was consistent!
Somewhere in Neil Gaiman’s ‘Sandman’ books, Death comes for a newborn baby. The baby says, “Is that all I get?”
Death says, “You get what everyone gets. A lifetime.”
That “what does God want?” has really started me thinking.
In my experience, really successful people (by most commonly accepted measures) are constantly disappointed and unhappy. Hence the propensity to over achieve. And thank god for them because if they were not wired that way, you would still be staring at the arsehole of an ox.
Nice one Aboodi,
It’s very important to accept what is, to accept that no-one knows what might be, and to carry on living fully with positive intention anyway.
Having said that, I’ve just received an email with the subject “Why God Wants You to Know about The Law of Attraction!”
From the perspective of “we are embodied spirit, or energy crystallized in matter, it probably doesn’t really matter…
But when I wake up in the morning to my self-conscious identity, it certainly does! Aaah, Aboodi let’s go for a beer and explore the meaning of life, and what we want to get out of it? Connected in the shared search about what matters.
Love it.
Green (relativist/pluralist) vs orange (rationalist/archivist) Spiral Dynamics value sets at work…along with Brit vs US cultural piece here re optimism I think.
All the best from Brighton,
M
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This post was mentioned on Twitter by AboodiShabi: Lies to stop believing? My latest blog: http://bit.ly/8lI75A…
I like ‘good orderly direction’ for god, or even a belief in the group process or nature or love… it’s an interesting question, Mark, and ironically maybe it’s where happiness is most likely to lie…
Good to have you back Bood.
I thought the great advantage of being non-religious was supposed to be that you didn’t have to concern yourself about these sorts of things. “Now stop worrying and enjoy your life” as the bus advert says.
Your irreverence is delightful. Isn’t it refreshing to think/believe that maybe we don’t have a clue AND AT THE SAME TIME it’s all perfect… Here’s to hanging out in the paradox of life!
I agree with Mark. In fact, this is exactly the response that I felt arising in reading the post. What is painfully lacking from this conversation is an invitation to invoke the Divine.
I won’t pretend to know what that means for someone who does not believe in God. For me, this is a question that transcends “optimism” and “a good vs. a better life.”
What I do know is that in cultivating a relationship with God, I can get a little whiff of what it is to be in harmony with this life, this creation, and to feel the presence God’s most incredible, free and ever-flowing love. Imagine resting in that sweet place…
“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.” — Teilhard de Chardin
With love and blessings.
Thanks Nick, for making me laugh and for stating another version of the truth!
Housebound at present due to weather have been watching day time TV and am quite shocked by one of the reality shows in particular – Escape Down Under..
It seems that each of the families featured so far are so totally convinced their world will change by moving abroad, but seem to have forgotten that they could face exactly the same problems that they have at home because they will be taking them with them…
Hi Aboodi et al,
Meant to respond long ago and got side-tracked… As I see it, in both an obvious sense (our world of human societies/relationships/technologies now globalising has been created by us humans) and in a deep sense (not Canfield commercial, but Perennial Philosophy) we do create our realities, within constraints imposed by the physical world. Accepting that sure beats complaining about it…and it bears considering where we want to take it from here and what we can do better. If we don’t believe we create our reality, we are likely to feel like victims of it, blaming others for creating it, etc. And we al know where that goes… Things will get better insofar as people take the responsibility to make them better. Robber Barons know they created their reality and gloat about it. It is our job to implement democracy, or living economies, as I prefer.
I agree that idle dreamers (as well as disheartened pessimists) don’t affect much, and I like to think us optimistic activists get some things going for the better.
I do think Training Mark is right in seeing a Brit/US difference between you and me, Aboodi (wink..where are those emoticons?) Let’s talk about the balance this week in Amsterdam!!!
“Surrender is a bold spiritual stance, the stance of a spiritual warrior, because what we are surrendering to is the next stage of our evolution. And as we surrender all, we create the inner spaciousness for Life to be seen as it is.”
- Michael Bernard Beckwith, Spiritual Liberation
This is also to me a quote about acceptance. What possibilities do you listen Aboodi in this one as compared to the ones you chose for this article?
I just read this in the Newfield Newsletter and it made me very curious about who you are,who you are listening to making claims. There is so much emerging evidence of the relationship to energy, consciousness and the ways we participate in the creation of everything- including the weather. There are even experiments with group intention for changing bad drinking water to good and it is working. Human Beings are powerful and much more than any situation we come from as you know as an Ontological Coach . I do energy work as well as coaching and I am blown away time and again by the presence of a core belief held in the auric field that is impacting a physical,mental or emotional state and outcome. I have seen and experienced everything turn around instantly, within hours, days, weeks and months -but they turn around. If there is a lock there is a key. What takes time perhaps is the humility to wait for the revelation. I claim that we do not know enough about how we manifest what we manifest or even enough about the role that expectation plays and most certainly we suffer more than is necessary in life. For every example you give in my opinion, there are exceptions. The tone of this article was confusing and irritating enough for me to respond. What is your intention?I have read things you have written before and this I must say produced a negative assesment of you as a coach. I would not trust you nor recommend you after this.
Hi Aboodi
i started yesterday thinking: “the life i have is the best life there is” and spent the rest of yesterday mulling and trying to unpack it.
you are very right to remind us that our fairy-tale longings may not get fulfilled. but may i please proffer a different way to peace?
1. to listen to why we even have these longings in the first place? did the voices outside give it to us or did they merely stir up something very deep wtihin us?
2. the path of peace can be non-attachment; but it can also be acceptance. if the latter, then there needs to be a greater Presnce and Power one can rest upon.
i tend to think we are unique snowflakes but caught in a nasty blizzard!
thank you
jen
A much needed and refreshing piece, Aboodi.
There are far too many coaches who go into the business because they want to make people happy, or, “make a difference in peoples’ lives”.
While this is laudable, it seems to me to be wrong to set out with any agenda, especially one that may be unrealistic. The “positive thinking” movement has much to answer for, as those of us who have worked with people who have been let down by it can testify.
Thank you for responding, and for your different perspective.
Part of my aim in writing this was to provoke discussion and debate, and I think I’ve managed to do that. As Curtis points out above, the piece reveals something of the observer I am – I don’t claim to have the truth, or to see it like it is, but just to share how I see it.
And, for me, part of the richness of having a blog site is to be able to look at what I see from other perspectives, and to learn from that.
So, thank you.
I see Aboodi’s piece as positive, but in a much more genuine sense. While the “positive thinking” brigade are positively working towards a constant state of “more” – whether that be more money, better health, higher status, more meaningful relationships – maybe they are missing out on the real positives of just being who we are?
If I/we can learn to be accepting, or content, or happy with the reality we are living in, that doesn’t stop us from moving forward at all, but it does allow us to be free from the burden of feeling dissatisfied about those things we feel we are entitled to but don’t have.
We are socially conditioned to constantly be striving for more, but I’m not convinced that striving doesn’t bring its own problems. There is nothing wrong with ambition, or having dreams, but how much more rewarding if they are *not* rooted in a sense of entitlement.
If a coach didn’t want to make a difference in people’s live, what exactly would be the point of being a coach?
You’re right Mark. I should have been clearer in setting out my thoughts about the motivations of coaches. It’s not really on topic so I’ll leave it.
Hi,
I like your piece and it reminds me that it’s all information and data to be used mostly in the direction of one’s becoming. If one has a bias or orientation to prefer/filter/notice for whats missing/not working/problem then that’s what one tracks and finds. If one has a bias or orientation towards what’s working, what’s possible and what’s the potential then one will find that. Neither of these are True in a larger sense. It’s just that if you bias yourself in a more embodied life-serving and life becoming way then the data and information from the problems will be utilized in the direction of one’s declarations, committments and legacy.
Best,
T
Thank for this Aboodi. Learning to be happy with what we’ve got is what is needed in my opinion. I see more smiles on the faces of poor agricultural workers here in Italy than I do on those people who drive the big cars and wear the flashy suits but are always hoping for more.
I listened to an interview with Pema Chodron a couple of days ago. It was entitled, “To know happiness we must know disappointment.” Surely this is how we are human in that we can both experience and recognize different emotional states. My learning has always been that embracing what is, allows for “what is” to speak to me. So, if I’m having a bad day, feeling all of those negative emotions, I first simply allow (say) sadness to be there. Then perhaps I can watch myself being sad and I can even feel it in my cells as well as in my mind and soul. Ultimately, perhaps, I can observe myself acting like a sad person. “Ah – so this is how a sad person acts and reacts.” Only when I know this, and when I fully embrace the loss I have sustained, can I move towards letting go of what you, Aboodi, call “the lie” that I can never fill the void that that person/situation left. Perhaps the mistake is in thinking that I – and I alone – know what is needed to fill the void. Rather, as we often hear, better to ask, “what wants to happen.”
Pushing in either direction (either straining towards a new state, or recoiling from the pain of the old) is an exercise in not being present. The hope that is so absent from this piece, lives in that moment of acceptance. The pain lies in the expectation my ego presents so long as I let it.