Above All, Don't Lie To Yourself!

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Have you ever realized how often we lie to ourselves? We probably do it more often than we lie to other people. But, Why? Why would a person lie to himself?

The phrase itself sounds weird, some people reading this now might even wonder: "How can a person lie to himself in the first place?" Believe me, it's something we do all the time.

We lie to ourselves to keep discomfort away. I for example lied to myself a million times, I did it once to convince myself that I'm not addicted to drugs and that I only use as a mean of entertainment, I did once again when I said: "At least my drug is not cocaine" to convince myself that it's okay to use drugs as long as it's not an extreme kind of drug. I also lied to myself when I said: "The only reason I'm not wealthy is because of my income level" But, one constant lie was: I'm going to start next ............. because ..........

I'm sure some of these lies rang a bell, and it became more obvious to you how often we lie to ourselves throughout the never-ending conversations we have with ourselves.

Deep down, we know the truth, and we even know that we're misleading ourselves on purpose, but we do it because we'd rather delay discomfort than face it now, we'd rather enjoy the moment than use it to fix our lives.

Another reason also is sometimes our lies to other people get reinforced in our minds that we almost believe them. It happened to me many times that I kept repeating to myself what I once said as a lie, maybe becaused I wished this lie was true.

About 8 months ago I wasn't only lying to myself but I was living inside of a lie, I was avoiding harsh conversations to enjoy the moment, and I lived this way for a while till I woke up to a nightmare.

Only then I realized how important it is to be honest and transparent with myself, to see things as they are not as I'd love to see them. Also, I've learned that lies are perceived as facts if they're repeated enough times, which means you can be on your way to abyss thinking that you're winning in life.

Fyodor Dostoevsky said in [The Brothers Karamazov]

“Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.”

Now, tell me one lie you used to repeat to yourself.