Truth isn’t just a matter of not lying.
Lying isn’t good. But you can not be lying and living a farce of a life. (read: 15 Steps to Becoming a Better Man)
You can be telling the truth with your words but being deceitful with your actions, and being deceitful with your actions would be categorized as living in a way that degrades or betrays your potential.
For now, let’s call your potential what you’re aiming at.
Since we don’t know what our potential is or how great we can truly be, let’s use our gut as the guiding light. (read: How to Develop an Iron Will)
What behavior betrays your ideal, goal, dream?
The most successful people act in a way that aligns with what they want and who they want to become.
They live a truthful life in that sense.
They don’t complain, they have no envy, they don’t sleep in or quit when times get tough.
Their actions align with their ideals.
That’s TRUTH.
The rest, the mediocre majority who are plagued by cynicism, depression, envy, lust, green, hate, they all act in a way that betrays who they want to be and they constantly feel bad for it whether they know it or not.
They aren’t living as they can and they feel it deep in their souls.
They lack confidence because of this deceit. They lack pride in their work, happiness, and meaning.
They blame external forces for their lack of happiness, never coming to grips with the fact that their lives are simply out of line and it’s on THEM to change that.
The task is simple:
Be truthful to yourself. Don’t lie to yourself. Don’t let yourself down.
Be truthful about what you want in life.
Be truthful about the amount of work and discipline it will take to get it.
Be truthful about how you’re behaving and if you’re really living up to your potential – if your behavior actually aligns with your goals, dreams, potential.
Second, don’t lie to yourself through false comparison…
Don’t compare yourself to other people – it’s a lie. (read: How to Stop Comparing and Start Winning)
You’re so very different than others. Compare yourself to who you were yesterday. That’s a battle you can win.
It’s a battle that’s under your control.
By comparing yourself to others, people whom you don’t really know, you don’t know their thoughts, their upbringing, what they’ve dealt with, overcome, or been defeated by.
You don’t know their strengths and their demons.
Comparing yourself to others is a lie.
It’s lying to yourself about the reality of someone else’s life and the nature of your own.
You’re grading yourself on a scale that’s false. It isn’t real.
It’s subjective perception – hence, a lie.
It’s almost masochistic, this desire we have to compare ourselves to others.
It does us no good, except for making us feel bad about who we are and where we are and what we’re doing even though the comparison is a lie.
It’s far better to compare yourself, today, to who you were yesterday.
THAT is a battle you can win.
That’s a battle worth waging.
That’s a battle you know deeply, one founded in truth, not lies.
You know your weaknesses.
Meditate on them. Write them down. Draw your battle lines and live a truthful life.
You have to live a truthful life so as to live a successful life.
So as to live your life, as it was intended to live – not someone else’s life or a life that’s far less than what your life can be.
Don’t like to yourself. Be better today than you were yesterday.
Be Legendary,
Chad Howse
