Going back to literary definitions once again, here are two potential descriptions of what beliefs actually are:
1. Belief, n.: A state or habit of mind in which trust or confidence is placed in some person or thing.
2. Belief, n.: Conviction of the truth of some statement or the reality of some being or phenomenon, especially when based on examination of evidence.
A belief is something that we personally choose to form in our own minds about the way that we choose to perceive the world around us. It is our recognition that some idea or thing is true and valid. Stated another way, our beliefs are things that we decide we want to think are true, based on the information we have taken in up until this point in our lives. Our beliefs are based off of our perception of life, which is based solely on our experiences and knowledge about life. Just because we see something a certain way does not necessarily mean that it actually is that way in reality.
Perception and reality are two different things. As we get older, and we learn new things, we realize that certain assumptions we had at a younger age were not as accurate as the new view we currently have of the world. This is why I consider myself to be a student of life; because I know that all of the things I think I know about the world are only the best assumptions I can make using what I’ve learned up to this point -- and this does not necessarily make any of them true. I understand that we will probably never know everything there is to know in this life, and there will always be new things we can learn from others throughout the course of our lives. This is why I consider myself to be a philosopher; a lover of knowledge. I love to keep an open mind, learn new things, and think for myself. I’ve found that I keep getting closer and closer to understanding the truth of what reality is; and as I do, it allows me to smash through my inaccurate perceptions that have held me back -- and caused lots of pain and suffering in the past.
I know your head is probably spinning right now, because mine is too. Sorry about that. Let that settle in for a minute or two, and re-read the last paragraph if you have to. When you believe (wink) that you have digested all of it, feel free to continue on.
It’s of the utmost importance to truly grasp the idea that perception is not reality. It is only after we know this that we can really start to understand how to control our own beliefs. Let’s examine one of the greatest examples in history of perception and reality being different. For thousands of years, it was a widespread belief that the earth was flat; and that if you were to go to the edge of it, you would fall off. Aristotle was one of the earliest to dispute this belief, and provided actual evidence against it. He stated that by simply traveling south, the constellations of stars would appear higher above the horizon, which would not make sense unless the earth was round. But people did not like this new idea at all. People do not like when their perception of reality is seen to be inaccurate and outdated. We do not like to be wrong. Throughout history, whenever someone has made a revolutionary discovery or created a paradigm-shifting idea, the general public always has the same reaction. First, they close their minds off to the idea, ridicule the person, and suggest they enter an insane asylum. Next, they become very afraid, and violently oppose the idea; many times even threatening to imprison or murder the person who created it. And finally, the struggle ends, and it is accepted as being the new status quo reality (when it is actually still just a newer perception).
Perhaps that is why I felt like my head was spinning when writing that paragraph earlier. We humans are generally not very fond of the unfamiliar. We like order, safety, and comfort. We don’t like it when something comes along that threatens to change the way we see the world, even if it is for the better, because we just want to keep things the same. We’d rather stay exactly where we are, no matter how bad things can be; because even if a new paradigm has the potential to make things much better for everyone, we fear that it has the chance to make them just a little worse, and decide that it is too risky. We don’t like to deal with the fact that in reality, none of us really know why we are here, or what we are doing. That’s why many people do not like to think for themselves, and would rather just keep busy in their day-to-day actions. It gives us comfort to just blindly follow the herd. Besides, if all the cool kids are doing it, it must be good, right?
Think about your core beliefs about the world we live in right now. Where did you get yours? Did you choose them all yourself, and put aside a considerable amount of time to examine why you believe them? Do you ever take a moment to re-examine these views after some time has gone by, and you’ve learned new information that could contradict them -- or do you selectively believe whatever seems most convenient and familiar to those around you? I can tell you this: From my own experience of spending years examining all of my beliefs about myself and the world, I was shocked when I realized just how many were passed down to me from others, and were not based on my own better judgment. So many of my beliefs were self-limiting. I realized that many of the problems I had in my life were rooted in perceptions I had about the world that were the equivalent of the earth being flat. It’s no wonder so many of us suffer and struggle in our lives. We are walking around the world in a self-created prison based upon inefficient ways of thinking that we got from others who were just as clueless as us -- and we don’t even know it.
Consider how many beliefs are passed down to us from our families, our friends, our cultures, the mass media, and everything around us. How many of us have certain religious beliefs, political affiliations, favorite sports teams, views on marriage, views on racism, views on animal rights, and many more; just because these were the things that the people around us believed when we were young and didn’t know any better, so we just copied them? Does this mean that the beliefs we have chosen are all the right ones, and that all of the other ones are wrong? How many of us have then created stories and reasoning around these ideas about why we are right and others are completely wrong, when we haven’t even looked at why we even believe them ourselves in the first place?
Imagine this scenario: You’re a helpless child. You can’t even fend for yourself. These big people that hang around you start to feed you, clothe you, and make you feel safe. They teach you things, such as how to read, how to tie your shoes, and how to have table manners. They give you all sorts of gifts, and teach you how to do things that make your life better. So, if they were to tell you that you are supposed to root for the Yankees and hate the Red Sox, why wouldn’t you believe them? If they tell you that another political party is full of morons, why wouldn’t you believe it? If they were to tell you that another race is evil, why wouldn’t you believe it? So, if they were to tell you that you’re too loud, too short, too fat, too ugly, too stupid, that you are worthless, and that you will never amount to anything in life, it is possible that you will wake up one day 20 years later, open this book, and realize that you have been spending your entire life not knowing why you never felt happy, whole, and like someone who deserves good things in life! Beliefs can empower us or cage us in forever. Beliefs are that powerful.
Even animals can be susceptible to certain types of faulty belief systems. There’s an old folk tale that speaks about how people were able to use psychological tricks to control a massive elephant. When the elephant was very young, the people chained it up to a pole in the ground. Though the elephant tried to break away with all of its might, it eventually gave up, realizing that it was of no use. Eventually, the elephant grew to become monstrous, and was easily capable of breaking away from the chains that bound him. However, there was a self-limiting belief in his mind that told him he would not be able to do it, and so he didn’t even try.
Do you understand the impact your beliefs can have on your life? Do you understand that even though you may not be able to see how or why (just like the elephant), they have the ability to transform your life? What I’ve come to understand is that nearly every system in our lives is based on belief. Here are a few examples:
Why are people willing to p
ay $150 for a shirt with a tiny horse or alligator on it rather than a duck or a falcon? It’s because our society and advertising have made them believe that it is worth the money.
Why does a job hire one applicant over another? It’s because the chosen applicant did a better job of making them believe that they are capable of getting the job done.
Why are some men who are abusive able to date women who are beautiful, inside and out? It’s because those men believe that they deserve awesome women, while some awesome women were taught to believe that they don’t deserve to be treated with respect.
How did the Wright brothers invent a machine that was capable of human flight? They wholeheartedly believed it was possible, and kept iterating on their designs until they were able to put the parts in a successful configuration to create an airplane that changed the course of human history.
I could keep going with these types of examples, but I think it’s obvious at this point that our beliefs are crucial in our lives. What we believe shapes who we are as people, what things come into and out of our lives, and affects our overall quality of life. Our beliefs are tools to serve and empower us. Start thinking about which ones have slipped by your radar undetected for years, and are still holding you back right now. Start thinking about what steps you could take to begin to embody some new beliefs that are more closely aligned with the core of who you really are.
If we are unwilling to examine our belief structures at a deep level, it can bring mighty consequences along with it; not just personally, but also on a large scale as well. Isn’t it strange that in every war that has ever occurred throughout history, all of the people going into battle on both sides are completely convinced that they are on the good side, and that the other side is irrationally evil? It’d be very beneficial for both sides to consider something like this:
“Are we 100% sure that we’re right about this? Is there not even a one percent chance that we’re not seeing something they see that would completely change our entire perspective on this situation? What if they’re good people who also love their families and culture, but we’re all just part of some major miscommunication that causes all of us to misinterpret the others as being evil? Wouldn’t it be beneficial for us to learn how to try as hard as possible to view these circumstances from another person’s shoes, before we go off and create a bloody massacre? More than likely, both sides are simply doing a poor job of objectively examining the selfish aspects of their respective positions, in order to gain a better understanding about why the other side is upset.”
By having the courage to challenge our long-held stances and beliefs, we can begin to realize how many of the social norms we follow are actually driving us to become part of the problem, rather than part of the solution. For instance, think about just how big of an influence advertising can have over our lives. In an effort to maximize profits, many organizations will create advertisements that attempt to pick at our insecurities, and create social imbalances. It can be hard to recognize just how strong of an impact they have on our lives, because we’ve likely been bombarded with commercials since before we were even old enough to use language. But by looking closely, we can see the effects all over the place. There are often underlying storylines present in many advertisements that aim to define the dominant paradigms that shape a culture -- not for the good of the citizens, but for the good of the companies. Since humans will tend to conform to whatever is considered to be normal, companies often exploit this by creating ads that make individuals feel as if they need a particular product in order to avoid straying too far away from this illusory standard of normalcy.
For women, a major paradigm-warping storyline is that no one will love or accept them unless they conform to an anorexic standard of beauty. For men, a major paradigm-warping storyline is that no one will love or accept them unless they accumulate an excessive amount of material possessions. In order to acquire the items and procedures we think we need for this acceptance, we are taught that we need to compete and move up an imaginary ladder. We place a higher priority on a position’s salary than on what type of values it has, what type of impact it has, and what type of people we will become by spending so many of our waking hours immersed into that role. We are trained to learn about stepping over people, politics, brown-nosing, and manipulation.
Sadly, while many of these training tactics can surely accelerate the career of a person in a position such as sales, for instance; they can also give the person a repulsive personality that no one else truly wants to be around. If a person’s job involves exploiting other people for 40--80 hours every week, those habits are not just light switches that can be flipped down upon leaving the office. These habits of mind begin to cement themselves in place, and this career path leads to being constantly surrounded by others with these same predominant values. This exploitative person can become incapable of creating deep bonds with others, and end up with a bunch of shallow friendships and romances based only upon surface level matter, leaving them still feeling unfulfilled. As a result, this perceived lack of recognition and acceptance can make them compete even harder, in an attempt to move even higher. However, it’s like trying to fill a bucket with a hole in it. Rises in income can lead to rises in material purchases (to feel a sense of accomplishment) and decreases in free time, which only worsens the cycle. It’s all too easy for the constant stress and insincerity from this type of lifestyle to further engrain a negative self-image into a person’s psyche. When too many people have negative self-images, they form even more negative personal habits, create negative families, and see no problem with profiting from exploitative business models that take advantage of other people and the environment. It’s all part of the same vicious cycle.
Though we’ve been instructed at a subconscious level to accept commercial ideas and paradigms about what makes us attractive as universally true, the truth is that by taking it upon ourselves to challenge them, we may find that they are not nearly as valid as we may have imagined. If wealth, fame, and physical beauty are truly the keys to love, acceptance and happiness, then why are there so many celebrities, politicians, and athletes dealing with problems involving relationships, addictions, and loneliness? Obviously, something does not add up here.
Here’s an idea that most advertisements won’t tell you: The most important thing you can do to be attractive to others is to be courageous enough to face and overcome your fears, so that you can develop the confidence to become the person you really want to be. This doesn’t mean having the type of false confidence that makes a person brag and act as if they are the greatest thing since sliced bread. It’s more of a silent confidence that stems from having the bravery to think, speak and act in alignment with your own deepest truths. There is no luxury item or plastic surgery in the world that can help you access a stronger and deeper connection to other human beings than you can obtain from being sincere with other people. When you have no agenda, you can connect with others effortlessly, because you give them nothing to resist.
Don’t get me wrong -- overcoming a major fear is one of the hardest things for anyone to do. All throughout your life, fear has always been that one thing that stands between who you are -- and who you want to become. Every time an opportunity has come up to step out into uncharted territory, to do something that would fulfill your soul, it’s been the invisible hand that squeezes the back of your neck and pulls you back at the very last moment. It can stop you from trying out for something you want. It can make you stand up against the wall at a party instead of dancing in the middle of a giant circle of people. Though it’s invisible, the power it possesses is undeniably real.
On the bright side, there’s a major advantage to having an invisible foe: It’s like the bad guy from the movie The Matrix. He only exists in your mind. He does not exist in the physical world. And once you understand that, you can learn how to destroy him. It’s important to understand that when it comes to conquering fears, you can choose to live your life in one o
f two ways: Either you control them, or they control you. No matter what fear it is, the willingness to stare it in the face and take action without batting an eye will create a major detour in your life. It will take you off road; away from the cookie-cutter, box-store life that others have tried to squeeze you into, and into the wild and rugged terrain that you’ve always yearned to explore. The rules of the universe begin to bend differently for you, and a radiant and silent power begins building up inside where there was once only a sickening overflow of timidness and regret.
The key is to take baby steps, and achieve small victories. Make a list of all of the things that you’ve always wanted to do, but you’ve always let fear prevent you from doing. And one by one, starting with the smallest, do them. Perhaps you’ve wanted to share your views about something edgy, but are terrified of posting it on the internet to be judged and chewed up by the entire world; who will gather outside of your house and yell on megaphones about how incompetent and worthless your opinions are. Your boss will fire you, your significant other will dump you, and your family will disown you. You will become an ex-communicated wandering nomad, drifting alone through the deserts, looking for a cactus that hasn’t read your blog yet in order to ask it for a drink of water to survive another day. Scary, isn’t it?
I remember doing my first creative writing many years ago, on a piece of paper that I kept in my wallet. I was terrified to show anyone. It was a mini-inspirational speech that I wrote to myself to prevent me from giving up while studying for my calculus final. One night in college, half-delirious during an all-night study session with a friend, I felt comfortable enough to show it to him. And guess what happened? He made a copy for himself, so that he could read it when he wanted to give up on studying too. I was blown away. I showed a few other friends, and they all told me I should be an inspirational writer or speaker. At the time, I shrugged it off, thinking they were just being polite, and went back to studying. Back then, I never believed that one day I’d have the courage to release personal stories about my life to the general public that most people wouldn’t even discuss with someone until they’d dated for at least six months.
It's All My Fault: How I Messed Up the World, and Why I Need Your Help to Fix It Page 7