Many of our beliefs are just as crazy as they sound, but when we hear talking about them since our childhood (youth), we end up considering them as the norm.
In Ancient Greece, for example, people thought that the Earth was the center of the Universe and that all the planets, stars and the Sun revolved around it. By the 16th Century, Galileo, Kepler and Copernicus proved the geocentric model wrong.
Beliefs can be found in anything related to how we live our life; being it a relationship with a person, a thing or an emotion. Whatever it is we go through in our life, our mind can make it believable. Beliefs are also the basis for action.
Our minds can make our life experiences real even when they aren’t, and until we question our beliefs we’ll never know whether what we do right or wrong.
While I was in the process of questioning my personal beliefs, I observed eight recurring ideas that people in our society still believe to be true.
1. Other people are more fortunate than me
“I’m getting left behind. What did I do wrong?” Those are the kind of things I would tell myself and I would start comparing my life to others.
Are you so caught up in looking over to your right or to your left? How many of us go on Instagram or Facebook and stalk people? Admit it. You look at people smiling and having fun in some exotic location and ask yourself: “Why them and not me?”
Instead, be original, create your own fortune. Don’t worry about living other people’s lives, know yourself, appreciate who you are, be confident in your abilities and work hard for what you want to accomplish.
2. Life is suffering
“Life is hard, painful, you have to struggle.”
Well, that’s what my parents told me, and their parents told them that, too.
When I realized that I didn’t have to live in the “conveyor belt” lifestyle that everyone else was living, I realized that life can be whatever I choose.
When you say that life is full of pain and suffering, that is what you attract. When you say that you have the power to mold life into whatever you want to make it, that’s when you tap into your greatness and can achieve whatever you dream.
Pain is inevitable, but suffering is always a choice and the pain is temporary.
Suffering is caused by not being able to let go of the temporary pain you’ve experienced.
3. Money is a right
Some people think, because they have a lot of money, they have the right to do whatever they want.
I used to think this way, my identity and self-worth were tied to my material possessions until I lost it all.
During the rebuilding process, I realized that even though we live in a material world, material possessions don’t make me who I am. They are just things I own.
When it’ll be all said and done, all you’ll have are the memories you shared with the people who mattered most in your life.
The experiences, not the things. That’s what you should be focusing on more and more every day. The relationships.
4. You should get married
Society tells us that we have to get married and have children by a certain age, and if we don’t do that we are clearly doing something wrong.
Where do all of these ideas come from? Who implanted them into our minds?
As we evolve in consciousness, we realize that none of us have to get married and none of us have to have children, but we do have to do what resonates with our heart.
I think it’s wonderful to be in divine union and to have children, but don’t feel guilty if you aren’t doing those things.
5. Degrees mean success
Growing up that’s all I wanted to do. Just study, because I thought the more I studied that was a guarantee I could live a successful life.
Studying is wonderful. It opens doors and your mind, but if you don’t go to university you can still make it.
If you don’t have a degree you can still live your dreams.
6. You have to look perfect
Many people fixate on having the perfect body, the perfect shape or being the perfect size.
I used to think that I needed the perfect body image. I had a program running in my head that was the be all and end all.
How many of us go on diets just to try and fit into an image which probably doesn’t even exist, because that person in the magazine has been digitally manipulated?
What I realized is that you have to have a body, shape and size that is truthful to you along your journey, not somebody else’s journey.
Whatever you do, do it for yourself. The more you do it, the more you realize that none of us is supposed to look exactly the same. We are supposed to look how we envision ourselves in our minds at our highest level.
7. Your greatness has a limit
How many of us say: “Ok I’ve done enough. I reached my limit. Let me stop now and take a break”.
The truth is there is no limit. Many people stunt their growth, they rest on their laurels and put their tools away.
You have to have your tools out every day because, you never know when you might need them to build something.
Sometimes you are building at night and other times you build as first thing in the morning; but the more you build and the more you create, the more you perfect your craft.
But if you stop working and you wait for the perfect moment, and continue living in your comfort zone, you will become stagnant.
8. You have to have it all figured out
Enlightenment is knowing how much you don’t know. When you embark on a voyage, you must let go of the old and embrace the new.
By doing so, you’ll start to realize how much more there is to know.
If you fail, try again, dust yourself off, get back on your feet and move on. The secret is to take action and not to try and have it all figured out.
Many of the things you believe to be true, are true only as long as you think they are. As soon as you disconnect from this idea and stop being confined by it, you’ll recognize that you can achieve, obtain and become whatever you want. Most of the times, something totally different than your original belief.
Anything you think and naturally consider to be true can be defined as a belief. None of your beliefs though have a higher chance of being true than all your other thoughts.
But as soon as you tag your thoughts as beliefs, then they fall into the “untouchable” category and you stop questioning them.
Ultimately, don’t think that because lots of people believe in something, that has to be true. The number of people believing in a particular thing doesn’t increases the chances of it to be right.
The lesson?
Question your beliefs, always.
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