Be True To Yourself and Follow Your Compass

Perhaps it isn't ideal to be a liar. Sure it works... until it doesn't.

Nov 13, 2023

Much of the world's moral compass is broken. The moral north reads south and the moral south reads north.

Be True To Yourself

The notion that it is impossible to lie to yourself is pervasive in our society. “Of course, you cannot lie to yourself, because you have to think about lying to yourself.” This seems logical and is likely true, to a point. However, as you start lying to yourself, much like anything you do habitually, it becomes easier and ultimately automatic.

Eventually the original lie becomes your new truth. This can be due to forgetting you lied to yourself in the first place. Once you reach this point, your reality is distorted.

What is your reality centered on? Is it one centered on truth above all else, even when sacrifice is necessary? Or is it centered on comfort, using lies and deceit to fool yourself into an artificial calm? The way you perceive the world depends on this completely.

If you never accept responsibility for circumstances, you may have some hand in what went poorly, but only accept responsibility for those that went well, over time there will become a grossly inflated sense of self importance and almost divine ability to avoid any mistakes and shortcomings.

But that will only be in your perceived reality, and this will invariably cause you to run into competency related roadblocks that you weren’t able to see.

However, if instead you only recognize your failures, and not your successes, you will start to see only obstacles in your path as opposed to any clear and realistic way forward. Obviously, this is also problematic.

The reason truth is vital in all things, or avoiding deceit , is that your path forward in life is shaped through the lens in which you perceive reality. It should not be warped to pretend there are no obstacles nor should it be tuned to only see obstacles.

You need to be able to see a clear trail when it’s there and the objects that my be in the way. And when avoidance is not an option, seeing the obstacle ahead of time allows you to plan and figure out how you will take it on.

Conscience is our magnetic compass; reason our chart.

Joseph Cook

Follow Your Compass

Everyone has a compass that guides them through life and every decision they make. This moral compass will dictate what kind of life you lead and how you affect those around you. What people do not seem to understand, and what you must, is every decision also serves to calibrate that compass.

With a standard compass we can rely on the polarity of the Earth to show us North. From there, we can determine East, West, and South. Yet, if there is interference, either from some other form of magnetism or perhaps electrostatic interferences strong enough to manipulate a compass, then its representation of North is skewed and that will lead you far off the path you had assumed you were taking, when the assumption was that the compass was correct. This happens with your moral compass as well.

Each decision made determines whether it stays pointed at a true North, or if it starts moving ever so slightly askew. Lies become interference for your moral compass. These lead you astray and to places that can end up being impossible to escape from. There is hope in the event you have already started interfering with your own compass.

If it is not too late (and there aren’t many indicators to show us when too late is, other than death) you can still slowly and methodically bring your compass pointing back to a true North.

For instance, if you are hiking and find yourself above a large deposit of magnetic ores, which you may have failed to notice when heading out from that area, you can make a correction once the compass points back North.

Much like that, if lies have interfered with your direction in life, the only path forward that might not lead to destruction, and that is meant both literally and figuratively, is to stop lying.

I am not suggesting you gradually taper off lying and slowly meander along the path towards only being truthful. That will not work because lying is far easier than being truthful, so the pit you have fallen into will never let you out.

Additionally, given this is targeted towards my kids, presenting this as a suggestion is also incorrect. This is not a request. To put it bluntly; you will stop lying now, and completely, or you will only experience suffering and the utter destruction of yourself and very likely the people around you.

This sounds extreme, but lies compound exponentially, not gradually. There is no nice slope that will come from lying. There is only a steep incline that culminates in a cliff that you will inevitably fall from due to not being able to navigate properly (remember the compass).

This fall will come. This fall will hurt. Hopefully the mountain of lies wasn’t tall enough at that point to kill you. If this happens and you survive, learn from it. Pick yourself up, bloody and broken, and continue ever forward with the hard won knowledge and experience of what lies can do.

I know this from surviving a fall off a cliff of my own lies. I got to fall early enough to live, not everyone is so lucky.

Be True To Yourself and Follow Your Compass

Perhaps it isn't ideal to be a liar. Sure it works... until it doesn't.

Be True To Yourself

Follow Your Compass

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