Everything We Think We Know is Wrong

Everyday we are bombarded with so much different information it is often difficult to find the truth. It is even harder when we consider that our minds, our Ego, would prefer to hold onto a false piece of information simply because it is easier, or more comfortable to continue to believe a falsehood when the truth is not something we want to believe, or accept.  Much of our reluctance may come from emotional pain, particularly when we have recently experienced a painful loss.  But there are other truths that are much more difficult to accept.  I have found that those truths that are the hardest to accept, are most often due to something we learned in the past that we were taught was fact, but our personal experience shows that the “truth” is in fact, false.

There are many ways that this can happen:  marketing and propaganda are  usually two that come immediately to mind.  But we also can receive false information simply because the people teaching us have been given incorrect information.  And once the information is repeated often enough, the idea or misconception becomes a fact simply because it is considered “common knowledge.”

In today’s society, we are starting to question the common knowledge that we have been given, and we are finding that our experiences are conflicting with what we have been taught.  Accepting new knowledge is difficult.  Our egos do not want to let go of the old knowledge, the old identity.  This is reflected in many ways, both physical and emotional, and many of us resort to a variety of methods to avoid feeling the discomfort.  We do this because one of the first and foremost falsehoods we have been taught is to “not question authority.”  Authority can be anything or anyone in a position of control: the government, our teachers, our religious and community leaders, our family members, literally anyone.  Through a variety of means, we have been taught to fear punishment or reprisal for even asking questions to learn, to understand.  What’s more, we are also told to learn to experience, or that that “we should have enough experience” to know something, which is further adding to the conflicts in the unconscious dialog we have with ourselves.

It took me many years to grasp this idea, and more to accept it.  Eventually I learned to recognize and accept that it is not just ok to question authority, and to allow myself to learn from my experiences, but that it is more rewarding to do so.  I learned how to give myself permission and accept that everything I think I know is wrong.  I also learned how to forgive myself for holding onto the old false beliefs, and to forgive those who taught them to me.  I began to understand that these are the ways that we as individuals, both our physical and our Spiritual selves learn, but also society as a whole learns as grows as well.