Stories that Betray Our Life (A Lived Belief, Part 1)

Most anyone will be able to tell you what he or she believes to be true about our world, his or her life, God, politics, or nearly anything else. However, what we say is often different than what we live. And how one lives is what reveals true belief.

The words we say about our beliefs are often a story that we tell ourselves. It’s not unusual. In fact, nearly everyone I know does this, because there are some things that we want to be true about our world and about ourselves.

If we tell ourselves this story long enough, then it does not matter how we live. This is why so many can say one thing and do something completely different. Nearly everyone I have ever met practices this kind of life - it’s not hypocrisy, it’s self-deception.

A hypocrite is someone who knows they are faking it. They tell everyone what they want to hear, and all the while don’t mean a word of it. Their talk is just a cover for a hidden life. A person who is self-deceived, does not say what others want to hear, but tells himself what he wants to hear.

While all of this sounds devilish, it’s a surprisingly common part of how we live. This only pays testimony to the power that stories play in our world. Everyone I know believes certain things about who they are to be true. This belief comes by way of what has been told to them or they have told themselves.

This becomes their story, and they tell and retell this story repeatedly. These narratives become their stated belief, regardless of any lived reality. What they actually do matters less than their fiction world they choose to live within. This allows them to comfort and insulate themselves from how they really live (or what they actually believe).

This also happens with how we view the world. We believe certain things to be true about certain people, ideas, and cultures. We hear stories about them, and incorporate them into our story. What may actually be real or true is trumped by our paradigm. We can see this everywhere we look in our world.

For example, I do not know anyone who believes that modern slavery is right. On the contrary, they protest it and name it for the evil that it is. But is it possible that this is a story that we tell ourselves, so that we can go and buy clothes made from the children who are subjugated into forced labor?

Can we say that we think forced child labor is wrong when we wear clothes on our back that have been sewn together by the small hands a child? Does our story match our life?

I know many men who speak passionately about respecting women. Yet in their marriage and in life they are chauvinistic and exploitive in their relationships with women. Perhaps they have been told a story or chosen to believe a story that betrays how they actually live. This story allows them to continue on believing they respect women.

There are endless examples of how this plays out in our world, and how this plays out in my life … and your life too. But there is a way in which we can discover what is really true. A path we can take so that our words reflect our life. How we react to this path is what may tell us the most about who we really are.

(To Be Continued)