Find Your Inner Truth
The most important thing in life is to always pursue your inner truth.
Life throws much falseness at us. It presents us with false choices such as going along with our parents or against them. How can there be such a thing? If your parents taught you to stand up for yourself and to tell the truth, then if you go along with your inner truth and stand up to them, you are for your parents, even if you are against them, are you not?
Words themselves often present us with falseness. For example, the “mastermind” is a title often given to criminals rather than people who have actually mastered their minds. A person who has truly mastered their mind would never mastermind a horrific crime. This is just one example of the falseness of language.
Why does the truth matter so much? I have noticed in my life that I am happy when I am pursuing my truths. When I am going along with my ethics, beliefs, deep needs (not just survival, but also intellectual and creative), I am happy and feel fulfilled in my life, as if I am on the right path.
When I deny myself, my beliefs, my ethics, then I am in misery. You cannot lie to your true self, as your true self always knows if you lie.
Understand that we live in societies full of falseness.
Corporations are looking for shortcuts to increase their profits while decreasing their expenses, meaning degradation of the product while making it appear to be of higher quality. The ones who best accomplish this are rewarded with greater profits. Politicians who tell the truth about their skills and motives will have the shortest careers. Unfortunately, the more lies they tell us, the more likely they are to have satisfying and full careers. Some musician’s voices are processed through software that helps to perfect the voice quality, regardless if the original musician has any talent or not. Those who make the best use of the software may be more likely to succeed, rather than those with the best singing voices and techniques.
There is much falseness, and we must learn to see it to move beyond it and wake up to the truth.
If asked how we are doing, we are expected not to share our pains but only put on the façade that we are doing well. We must all wear masks that all is well, even if we are dying inside. We smile on the outside and frown on the inside.
Many groups will, of course, argue for their version of the truth. There are the materialists and the spiritualists, the liberals and conservatives, the countries that always seem to be at war with one another and insist they are right and the other is wrong, the majority and minority groups with their quarrels, and so forth. We always argue that we are right, and therefore other groups must be wrong. But in the end, likely everyone has some rightness and some wrongness to their beliefs and behaviors.
You may realize that I refer to truths when they are personal realities for ourselves, but these same truths turn into beliefs when viewed on a grander world platform. My truth may be that war is wrong for me. But to someone else who is forced into perpetual wars even though they hate it, war may be an uncomfortable truth. It cannot be wrong because they did not choose it. To the person sucked into perpetual wars, they would say that I believe that war is wrong.
This is where language provides us with falseness once again. How can truth = belief? Well, even though it seems to be a contradiction, they sometimes do equal the same thing. This is a source of great misery in our lives. The truths which I may hold to be of the highest value may ultimately be my personal beliefs. And someone else in a different circumstance may be right to see my truths as wrong or naïve or even malicious. I do not intend any of my truths to be malicious, but someone else may interpret them in that way if my truths function as an imposition on other people’s truths.
In sticking to your truth, it is important to commit to positive ways of being and seeing that will not add pain to the world. If your truth is based on hatred, then I would urge you to find another way. Find a constructive use of your negative energy if you hold it, and morph it into something positive to help make things better for your people. Making things worse for someone else is unlikely to make things better for yourself in a way that is true to yourself.
The most important thing in life is to find our truth. No one is going to give it to you. The easy-made truths of following an ideology, a leader, a parent, and so on can give us a starting point. But it is not always best to go with what is conveniently in front of you. Of course, if you are happy and fulfilled with what you have, it makes sense to stick with it. If you find yourself questioning and doubtful, and unhappy, it could make sense to explore other truths outside of the ones you have been exposed to.
In the end, I believe that we select our truths. As an example, one society may believe that thieves should have their hand cut off. They will justify this by showing that thieves can no longer steal so easily when they are missing a hand, making the rest of society happy. We end up justifying the truths we select for ourselves - if we cut off hands, we have fewer thefts, meaning that we can continue to justify this course of action.
Another society may say that the punishment is too strict. If we punish them that way, will we punish all minor crimes with such violence, leaving much of society mangled and feeling bitter and hateful? This society does not cut off hands and instead tries to help poor people so that they do not feel pressured into stealing. They implement this course of action, and it leads to fewer thefts. So again, they continue to justify this course of action.
No matter which course of action we take, if it is based on deeply held beliefs, then we will probably find a way to justify viewing it as a success and wanting to continue in that direction.
We justify our beliefs and truths to ourselves every day. So every day that goes by, our truths seem truer than ever. And anyone who disagrees seems more wrong than ever.
Our minds want to see one pathway as correct, making all other pathways incorrect – but perhaps this assumption is itself false. There may be multiple competing truths and some statements or paths which are more true than others.
Most of humanity’s misery is one group looking at a coin on its side and shouting that it is heads, and the other group looking at it and shouting that it is tails. Both groups are right from their own vantage point but fail to realize that the other side is also right. Then, both groups fight over their truth and belittle each other to get the other group to understand their viewpoints, which makes things worse.
We should trust others to know what is true for them and stop imposing our truths onto them. Tell others what your truth is, without expecting them to follow you. And allow others to tell you their truth, but do not feel pressured into following it.
If I were to search for some basic truths, they would be as such: Treat others as you want to be treated. Do not harm anyone – it is most important to avoid physical harm, although, of course, we should avoid verbal abuse or emotional abuse as well. Do good deeds when you can, to whoever you can – such as helping someone survive or accomplish their goals.
The above truths are nothing new – many religions and philosophies point to some basic truths. And many of those truths overlap with each other. Obviously, basically, everyone agrees that to kill is wrong and to steal is wrong. And even these basic truths may have their exceptions. Many people would agree that to kill in self-defense or in defense of loved ones is acceptable. And to steal food when you are starving can also be viewed as acceptable.
Our task is to explore ourselves deeply to find what our inner truths are. What are the truths that we must actualize in our lives to feel whole? I recently spoke with a music lover who told me he had no access to music nor to learning it and that he was faced with the choice of finding a well-paying job or being a bad and poor musician. But our deepest inner truth isn’t just an abstract concept. It is who we are. Your deepest truths are an expression of who you are.
If music is in your soul, to deny yourself music is to deny yourself to yourself. It is to allow falseness in your life. Every day when someone asks how you are, and you say “fine,” then you are a liar because you are never fine since you do not have music. Choosing a paying job or music is a false dichotomy once again. You don’t have to choose. You can pursue both. You can pursue a solid job that involves music somehow (even if it is only in the background) and then pursue learning music on your own time. You can even play on the streets to earn extra income.
What are the most important truths of your life? Focus on the convergence of your thoughts, words, needs, desires, and actions. When your thoughts are in one place and actions in another, you are not living your truth. Do not lie to yourself.
If you privately think that it is wrong to curse, but you allow people to curse around you all day long without saying anything, then you are not living your truth. You may take a stand for yourself and tell the people around you that this makes you uncomfortable, and you want a respectful environment. Importantly, you should not impose your truth on them but rather state your perceptions. Either that or you change your view that perhaps cursing is not worth raising a fuss over every time.
Perhaps you focus your truth elsewhere. You may decide to look for a positive thing to comment on about the people you find a negative flaw. Every time you hear someone curse, you may look for something to compliment them on. This may be a middle path where you guide people in your life away from cursing – by shifting their attention to something positive rather than directly asking them not to curse. This may be wiser, as it is often more fruitful to ask people to do something than ask them not to do something.
Following your inner truth is the most important thing you can do.
However, this can be a challenge, as it is easier to go with the flow and allow our surroundings to guide our behavior. Your family will have its own rules, written and unwritten, then your company has different rules, written and unwritten. Your government has rules, of course, and so does your religion, if you have one. It is easier to go with the flow and follow the rules than to stop and think about them and realize that perhaps your personal truths do not always converge with those other rules.
And here we have the choice or the question of our lives. Will we adopt the rules handed to us, without thought, and mindlessly follow them? Will we assume that the rules are all there for a reason and abide by them? Our lives are, of course, filled with endless rules. Every time you access a new forum online or download a new app or piece of software, you may be urged to sign a 100-page document of rules. Even the people who write these Terms & Conditions do not expect you to read them, of course. It is all intended as legal protection for them.
Please do not get distracted by the rule books that dominate our lives. It is easy to get frustrated and overwhelmed and decide that the rules do not matter. Everyone has rules, and they often conflict. Yes, some agencies have gone overboard with their rules. Ironically, there are so many rules in modern society that most people don’t know what they are and don’t care. We only find out a rule, often, when we are being punished for not following it. Then we are always told that ignorance of the rules does not excuse us from them. We should have read the 100-page rule book, apparently. Or likely, thousands of pages when it comes to national, state, and local laws and regulations.
As strange as it may be, I would suggest that you form your own personal rule book of truths that you follow. We should all have this book of personal truths. The key question is, “What is my truth”? If you do not know your own truth, then you cannot live by it. If you don’t know your own truth, you cannot scrutinize it. And if you can’t scrutinize it, then you will stunt your growth as a person.
You may be living in falseness if you have never consciously thought through your life and core truths.
In time, your truths become your way of being. If one of your truths is that small matters in life should not cause you to blow up in anger, then reminding yourself of this will help you actualize it.
A truth I find important is that we should be more aware of ourselves and our surroundings. Every day, I see people walking into the streets, absorbed with their phones. I feel that this is a tragedy waiting to happen. People are so absorbed with their phones that they forget to check for oncoming traffic. They are much more likely to entrust their life to a green light or “walk” sign, forgetting that drivers often neglect these rules. My truth is that every moment of every day, something critical to our lives may be about to happen. If you are not looking, you could miss the most important moment of all. Bad people with bad intentions rely on good people who are completely unaware of what they are doing. Also, children get into trouble when no adult present is aware of that child.
A strange thought that I have sometimes is that someone in my vicinity could be in big trouble, and they may be waiting for me to notice it. For example, what if you are in a pool having fun, and while you are distracted, a child is drowning in the shallow end, and there is no lifeguard? What if there is a “missing child” poster, and you later see that missing child by chance, but you were not paying enough attention?
Imagine if we were put in the position to save a life every day, and we had never realized it. A depressed friend may call you today, but absorbed in his own falseness, he may insist that everything is fine. If you do not read through the signs of despair carefully, that his tone of voice is defeated, that he has just lost his job and the right to see his kids, then you will not be fully aware and present and able to help him. Put aside the falseness, and see through the falseness, and you may find that you will save a life today.
One of the greatest truths must be that what we do matters, as it impacts ourselves and everything around us somehow. And so, this reality must be important in some way if it is part of the collective truth that we are all living in. Then this means that we should work to help each other in this reality. We should give ourselves more to this real-world and stop escaping as much into the world of the phone and the screen, and social media. These tools of escape often drive us further from the truth. There are surely some good resources online, but we tend to spend most of our time on the most superficial parts of the online world, such as social media posts that manipulate our emotions and fill us with falseness. Most of the media, online and offline, seems to have an agenda, to teach us what it wants us to think. Rather than accepting what is given to us as truth, we must form our own basic truths and stop being swayed like a leaf by the winds of superficiality.
I would caution you not to adopt someone else’s truth so easily. Many people or agencies want to teach us to hate someone or something. If someone teaches us to hate their competitors, it gives them time to rise to power. Also, it shifts attention away from the source’s possible incompetence or deceptiveness. Hate is used as a tool to gain money and power. But you do not need to be an instrument of hate and should instead pursue your personal truth to gain personal power so that you can nullify hate and the negative energies in this life.
If you liked this post, you may want to read this post next - The Path to a True and Fruitful Life - where I discuss the most impactful truths that I have found in my life.
If you are ready to pursue your unique path to truth and understanding, you may wish to read Your Personal Truth: A Journey to Discover Your Truth, Become Your True Self, & Live Your Truth.
You can read the book on Amazon and other major retailers.
