Stop Bullshitting yourself.
It's time to break free and face reality.
6 minute readOur story this time is not so interesting, or rather, there is no story at all. Just pure, ruthless reality facing your eyes and penetrating the deepest parts of your mind.
There comes a day in a human’s life when he suddenly wakes up. I don’t know when that usually happens. For me it was around 22 years old. Maybe because it is at 25 when our frontal lobes fully develop.
I don’t either know the specifics. In retrospect, it feels like one morning you just come into life. You realize there is a brain inside you. A brain with its many flaws, which was given to you, shaped in part by its previous, mostly random, choices and in party by the environment. That is society, your parents, television, books or whatever stimuli entered your consciousness, even momentarily, the years before.
While scientists are still trying to figure out how those things exactly define your present moment, and although it may indeed be an interesting endeavour to explore them, we will put that part aside for the moment.
Because, the thing is, you wake up and you must, you definitely have to, work with the things you were given. Problem is, the same and only tool which you possess, must be used to alter itself, towards a destination it wants.
Pretty complicated and difficult, huh?
Nevertheless, the journey begins. We will skip most parts of it. You know, the first part, when you are lost, trying to find truth, trying to grab onto something. Endlessly being lost inside your mind’s everchanging roads, travelling, exploring and changing their shape. Throwing away things you don’t like. Keeping what you do. Expanding your field of view.
The prison. The prison inside. It’s bars really hidden but solid. Solid, thick, almost indestructible and mostly invisible. But you, my friend, are not the architect. Some of them were put there by society. Some of them by the shitty mental models you acquired in school. Year by year, slowly, the prison was built. To keep you in place. To define misery as happiness, to confine you, to give you the illusion of freedom.
So you start chipping them away. You keep seeking equipment to view them more clearly. Devouring books, conversations, mentors, experiences, you start by scratching them with your nails. Then with a small rasp of steel, the sound of metals accompanying you to your sleep. You must break free.
It’s a difficult, painful but necessary procedure. There are times when you want to give up, to free your soul of this search. There are times when you are angry, biting at wrong bars with your bare teeth, with no effect. But somehow, you make it.
A second time comes. This time, you have hot fire, chainsaws, x-ray vision and a 270 degree field of view. Most bars have fallen.
But your mind’s desire to believe in the prison has not. And that is the last and most difficult step to conquer.
A machine may be 98% perfect, but if its core is flawed, it may not work. Or it may work at 20% capacity. A software might be good, but if its kernel is somehow problematic, you can’t keep upgrading. It will eventually break. A man may be free to walk wherever he desires, but if his shoes weigh half a ton, he just has the illusion of walking.
Your core beliefs. Your strongest and most hidden assumptions. The necessity of your choices. You have to question them. To face them, and face reality. Or else, you are just like before. Your prison is just a bit bigger, with large tv screens, internet access and occasional walks outside, not too far though. And the option to move into another one when you feel like to.
That last step is the most frightening of all. Because there are no more excuses, there are no more illusions, and the upcoming change will have such a vast effect, you may even be afraid to imagine it.
That university you are attending, is it really what you wanted? Is your job really your choice? Do you really believe those steps you are taking today are leading you towards long-term happiness and fulfillment? Is it you that speaks or is it your mom?
Count the times each day when you keep lying to yourself. When you make up excuses to avoid reality. Magical, complicated, sophisticated stories to convince yourself that your choices are yours. To keep walking on the path you walk. That’s right, the bars keep reappearing. Only this time, they are even more subtle.
Stop bullshiting yourself. There are things you want and others you don’t. There are things you find plainly stupid, even if everyone disagrees. There are narratives you made up just to avoid reality, escape from consequences and choices. Feeling safe is nice after all.
There remains a big chunk of choices you make just to please others, to keep yourself locked up and busy. And sadly, deep inside, there is a voice that tries to warn you. That tries to convey to you what is really happening. But you keep shutting it up, you keep thinking you must change yourself, you keep finding meaning in stories that go against it.
Stop shutting it up. Do yourself a favour, and give that voice more attention. Let it take the driver’s seat, so that you can smash those walls around you. Believe me, the rabbit hole is pretty deep on that one. So deep, your brain is trying to protect you from entering it. To embrace the consequences of listening to that voice - on all aspects of your existence - is an experience beyond comprehension.
So, there it comes. A moment when you decide to stop bullshiting yourself. A moment when you decide to just face reality. All it takes is just a small step. A tiny step rooted in your desire for freedom, powered by your frustration of not getting results, produced by the need to escape the last drop of misery you have inflicted upon yourself. The slight, ever-present misery you keep not wanting to see.
Just a choice. That’s what it takes. A small choice, which will derail your spaceship once and for all. You don’t have to be all noisy about it, talking to your friends and anouncing your new-found wisdom. That’s what you did before, to fool yoursel… Just peacefully explore those galaxies awaiting you. Become a true adventurer. No more meaningless circling around black holes and planets long abandoned. Your journey is about to enter the next level, the final level.
The level that will last for a lifetime. It’s time to live life, and not be an actor on a stage you have no saying in. You only have one opportunity. You just have to step off that stage. Then, there is no going back, back to that ill defined course and reality. You only need to stop bullshitiing yourself. The question is, are you ready?