We should not lie to ourselves!
A few days ago, I was thinking about something. The main topic of the thinking was ‘Why we lie to ourself?’ The next thought came as an answer to the previous thought. ‘We lie to ourselves because we don’t accept ourselves. We lie because we don’t accept ourselves in that state or condition, or place.’
Think about it. When someone gets something good in front of you. Or your neighbour won the lottery, the same lottery you bought the ticket for. You’re sad. You’re feeling sudden anger. But you’re telling yourself, ‘I’m happy.’ You put on a fake smile and you again tell yourself, ‘I’m happy for him.’ No, you’re not. But you still said it. You lied to yourself because you didn’t accept yourself in that state and place. A place like ‘being someone who feels bad for someone else’s winning or happiness.’
Take another example. Someone reviewed your article or short story. He/she pointed out too many mistakes and that made you feel bad. He reviewed and with a thought of helping you. But you’re feeling bad because you’re thinking, ‘Why I never noticed it?’ You’re judging yourself. And you said, ‘He’s right. I’m happy for him to point it out,’ which is great and okay. But you should also point out that you felt bad. If you’ll point it out, you’ll try to fix it and next time you won’t feel anything like that. You’ll know it’s okay and they’re trying to help you.
Lying to ourselves is not something good to do. It’ll only make us egoistic, ignorant, self-conceited and a toxic person. We’ll only believe what our mind is saying. To come out of it, we need to be aware. I heard this in a YouTube video about controlling our thoughts. It said, ‘Don’t run away from whatever comes in your head. Stay and face it. Feel the worst and only then you can do the better.
What should we do? We need to overcome it. The first step is always acknowledging it. If we don’t know what’s wrong, how are we going to fix it!? So the first step is acknowledging it. For this, we can write a journal. Take a small copy or diary, or use an app on a smartphone. Keeping a regular or daily journal will help you find out the pattern. What things you do every day? What do you think? You’ll figure almost everything out from writing a daily journal. Or you can talk to a friend, the one you trust the most. Tell him to point out what you lack and about your habits. Take it as positive feedback.
The second step is to look for advice or help. You can do a quick search on Google and read articles about it. Self-improvement is the best way to improve yourself. But if you don’t know-how. Do not hesitate to look for help. Ask a friend or someone who know more about it. Or join a therapy session. Talk to people. You can know more about yourself and in less time from talking to others then looking into yourself. There are communities like r/Advice and r/selfimprovement where you can ask for help and advice. And people will be very happy to help you. Reddit is the best community for asking help and being anonymous at the same time. But before posting anything, read the rules because every subreddit has its own rules.
The third step is to fix it. For that, you need to be aware of your thoughts. Rumination is the cause of most of the problems we are facing. If we’re angry with someone, and we don’t stop thinking about it. It’ll lead to many other issues. There’s an article about rumination on Healthline. I linked it up. Read and know more about rumination and how to stop it. But the thing we need to understand is, finding something wrong in ourself is not a bad thing. If a person with bad habits is trying to change and become better, then he’s not a bad person. It is a way to improve.
Nowadays, society is so concerned with being good all the time like we’re forcing it on ourselves and people. Be good. Be wholesome. Love everyone. Don’t think bad. Don’t get jealous. Even if a person gets some of that feeling, he’ll get anxious and nervous. He’ll say, ‘I should not feel this’ instead of ‘Why I’m feeling it.’ It’ll make him feel less of himself. It’s okay to feel those things. We’re not perfect. The important thing is to correct it. Things will work out. Believe in yourself. And ask yourself ‘why I’m feeling this?, and ‘how can I correct this?’ with compassion and love. You’re doing great. Keep going. Smile!
