The Truth

A while back, I wrote a blog post about the book 'The Four Agreements' by Don Miguel Ruiz (Click here to read the original post). Well, he is back with a new book called 'The Fifth Agreement'. I'm still in the middle of reading it, but I seem to be buying into this Toltec philosophy thing.

Note: I am not being paid for this book review (though I will happily accept payment for it now that I am officially unemployed/self-employed/whatever you want to call it).

What I am finding most intriguing about these books is that the idea is simple, and yet it is difficult to explain, because there is so much complexity built into life in general that doesn't have to be there. There is truth and there is everything else. A tree is truth. The actual tree itself is actually there (unless it falls in a forest and nobody is there to hear it, I suppose, in which case it may or may not make a sound - sorry, couldn't help myself). However, the word "tree" or "arborio" or "pedh" is the perception of the tree. It is not a different item because the name is different, yet two people can misunderstand each other because they speak different languages. Oftentimes, even if two people share the same language (English), they still misunderstand one another because their own perceptions, their own points-of-view, mar their understanding of what the other person is trying to say.

The book starts off talking about how children learn how to live by agreeing to buy into other people's truths. "Don't run with scissors", for example, is a "truth" that many will agree to believe is good. We as a society have made this agreement. And there are many others. The ten commandments, laws are agreements that people generally all buy into, and society "agrees" that those who are not in agreement should be punished. And we agree or disagree about what those punishments should be. But these are all constructs, they are not truth.

And these truths can backfire. A child grows up being told "if you don't behave, you are a bad person", or "you are too fat", "you are dumb" (not necessarily in those exact words, but the message is still sent), and the child learns that he must agree to these things that grown-ups tell him, and he starts to believe them for himself. Children grow up believing what their parents believe, and sometime the most blatant falsehoods can be overcome, but other minor ones perpetuate (can you really catch a cold in the wintertime by going outside in the cold without being suitably bundled, or is it by being in closer proximity to others and the spread of germs?). As a child grows up, he also believes other people's perceptions about himself. So a child will agree to believe all the bad things about himself, ignoring all evidence to the contrary. The truth is lost.

The fifth agreement states "Be skeptical, but learn to listen." Don't trust anyone's perception, not even your own. Once you start believing the perception of you that you have adopted from other people's perceptions, you don't know who you truly are. But if you can doubt everyone's view of you, including your own view, then you can finally find who you really are.

I have some friends who know the real me, flaws and foibles and all, and still like me, encourage me and believe in me. These are people who choose to spend time with me despite how I sometimes see myself. They reenergize me, and help me break through the self-destructive, self-hating perceptions I sometimes wallow in. I succeed because I have them in my life.

Similarly, I know people who have a definite mistrusting view of the world, who will see anyone's actions in the worst possible light, and apply labels that can only be strengthened but never disproven (because any behavior to the contrary is just a pause in their natural nature, or an act put on to throw other's off from seeing the "real" them). That person is a crook. She is a conniving b$%#@. There's no recovering from these labels. Ever.

Friendships falter, marriages grow shaky, business relationships deteriorate - all based upon perceptions. And being personally affected by untruths - either by believing the lies told to you, by not believing the person when he tells you the truth, or simply not accepting that what is true for one person can be untrue for another - you give someone else the responsibility for your happiness.

Being gullible isn't healthy. Simply believing that what everyone tells you is the truth is bound to lead to disappointment. I do not lie to my kids. It's a personal choice I have made - with a couple of definite exceptions that my eldest is already privy to but has agreed to keep with me until my others are old enough - and I have expressed this to my children. I have also explained that I cannot expect the rest of the world to tell them the truth, but they need to know that if they come to me they will get an honest answer to whatever question they ask (unless we're playing, in which case I will use my monster voice to confirm that yes of course Daddy is going to eat them up!, but when my "serious" face comes back, they know they'll get the real answer from me).

But reading this book makes me question even this policy. The kids need to know that they can doubt what I'm telling them, because it is, after all, only my version of the truth that they can be sure to hear. I try to be as honest as I can - for as old as they are (certain talks should be worked up to, don't you agree?), but again, the truths that I pass on are replete with my version of the truth. No matter how balanced a truth I wish to convey, I will offer a skewed version of the truth that tells my children that fast food restaurants, smoking, doing drugs, and drinking too much alcohol are bad. Is that a truth, or simply my perception of the truth?

Science is truth. Then there is art, religion, and every other interpretation of the truth. There are infinite versions of "the check is in the mail" and other promises that you cannot know to be absolutely true until time tells you otherwise. I once wrote a letter to someone and cleansed my soul. When later this person told me the letter was never received, my first reaction was to send it again. Then I realized that the sending of the letter was what I needed. The reaction to it was irrelevant. My truth is the only one that matters, and all I can do is suffer and do myself further injustice if my well-being is tied to an appropriate response by someone else, someone whose actions, interpretations, perceptions are not my own and are not controlled by me. Further, since I don't have the burden of having to live with those perceptions, does it really matter that I convey my perception to someone else so they understand me? Is it not enough that I know my truth and am comfortable with it?

I have never regretted not being able to convince someone else of my point of view; only my own unwillingness to make clear to myself my own beliefs, or my own inaction. I could have been a published author by now if I had only written more, edited better, and kept submitting my writing. Or not. My regret is not that a publisher has not picked me up, but rather that I have not pushed my writing enough.

The take-away lesson here, I suppose, is that the truth is relative, and if you find yourself in a bad place, look at the perceptions around you. You are mirroring the perceptions of those around you, but only if you agree to. If the truth behind those perceptions could be happier were you to perceive the truth differently, could life be different? Are you unhappy because things really are that bad, or because you see them as bad and let your impressions, and those of the people closest to you, cloud your judgment of any action? Is she really a conniving b#@$!, or are those the only moments you care to acknowledge?

Life doesn't have to be miserable. You simply agree to let it be so. You control your destiny and your outlook. Choose happiness. This may sound overly simplistic, but why shouldn't it? Life is only complicated if you let it be so.