Denial isn’t just a powerful state of mind to be in: it’s also a comfortable one. Accepting the painful truths of this world means acknowledging the horror and injustice that surround us all the time. It’s like taking the red pill in the Matrix and opening your eyes to awful reality, rather than living in blissful ignorance.
The people who choose to face difficult truths, such as the ones we discuss here, have much stronger minds than most people, who instead prefer to take the blue pill and turn away from discomfort whenever possible.
1. Everything is temporary and can change at any moment.
When you’re aware of how ephemeral life is, you have the opportunity to treasure the small joys around you and make the most out of them. Everything — both good and bad — is temporary. If what you’re experiencing is good, you remember to enjoy and appreciate it while it’s here. If it’s awful, then you can be comforted by the fact that it’s not going to last forever.
This truth is a difficult one for many because people generally like certainty. This is why most people will check menus before going to a restaurant, or have solid plans in place for every contingency. Few people live in the moment and adapt to what unfolds because they want things they can rely on. Life, however, usually has different plans.
2. Death is inevitable.
None of us likes to think of the ends of things when we’re enjoying them. We’d love the most beautiful things in our lives to last forever, whether that’s the things we experience or the bodies we’re currently inhabiting. The truth that most don’t want to face is that everything ends eventually: relationships fall apart, dreams fail, pets die, and so do we.
Accepting death in all of its forms is something that only those with strong minds can do fairly easily. Most others rail against it and try to delay the inevitable by any means necessary.
3. People are responsible (and accountable) for their own actions.
When one accepts the mantle of responsibility for themselves, they move beyond the realm of childhood and step into adulthood. This comes with a great deal of responsibility, but a lot of autonomy as well. For example, you get to choose (for the most part) which responsibilities you shoulder. The key is to stand by them once they’ve been chosen.
For example, you can choose not to get into a relationship with someone who already has children and dependent parents, and who’s mostly looking for a domestic servant to help with their labor. This doesn’t make you a jerk. What does make you an ass, however, is if you choose to have children with someone and then walk away from that responsibility because you suddenly decide you don’t want the hassle and burden of parenthood.
Many people choose to run away from responsibility and find every excuse under the sun to justify their actions. It takes a strong mind and will to bear chosen burdens with grace.
4. The world is neither fair nor just.
It would be wonderful if we lived in a world where fairness and justice were foundational. Those who did good deeds would be recognized and rewarded, and those who did awful things would be punished accordingly. Unfortunately, that isn’t the world we live in. It often seems as though good deeds are punished or unacknowledged, while cruelty is commonplace and even rewarded.
This injustice can be difficult for tender-hearted people to come to terms with. As such, many choose to either live in denial or spend their time avoiding the world’s ugliness and focusing all their attention on more pleasant things instead. While this approach is certainly comforting, it’s also chosen blindness to the world’s injustices and suffering, which will ultimately perpetuate them.
No individual can change the entire world, but every person can endeavor to be the best they can by embodying fairness, integrity, justice, and decency towards everyone around them — human and non-human alike.
5. Pain and suffering are things that every individual will have to deal with.
If you ask most people whether they’d like to experience pain and suffering in life or have an existence free from any kind of discomfort or despair, most of them would choose the latter. We don’t have a choice, however, and each and every one of us will have to deal with some rather unpleasant experiences over our lifetimes.
To acknowledge and lean into these experiences lessens their unpleasantness, however. Both Buddhist texts and psychologist Carl Jung have taught us that what we resist persists: trying to avoid pain doesn’t alleviate it but can instead intensify suffering. In contrast, strong-minded people who choose to face and lean into suffering usually end up having a much easier time with it than those who flee from their shadows.
6. You can do everything “right” and still fail.
Many of us were taught as children that if we studied, worked hard, played by the rules, and were always kind to others, we would succeed at anything we put our hearts and minds to. This is a pleasant fantasy, but reality is quite different. It’s a difficult lesson to learn that you can do everything “right” and still fail spectacularly.
A lot of people can’t handle this truth well and will keep butting against it rather than facing and accepting it. While persistence and perseverance can be admirable in many situations, choosing to do something futile in the hope that it’ll succeed when it’s doomed to fail is an exercise in madness.
7. Not everyone is going to agree with you all the time (and that’s a good thing).
Not all dissenting opinions are “hate”: they’re just different. Unfortunately, a lot of people seem to think that anyone who doesn’t agree with what they think or feel is a horrible individual and shouldn’t be interacted with further. This is a dangerous mindset to hold, as it creates an echo chamber of “good vibes only,” without the opportunity to exchange and defend ideas.
The best path to learning more about yourself and the world around you is to encounter ideas that run counter to what you believe. It’s uncomfortable to have your views challenged, but if you press through that feeling and analyze what’s different and new, you may find another aspect or avenue that you were unaware of before.
Even if the other’s view is incorrect or simply not for you, you’ll find that your own stance is sharpened and bolstered by the challenge. People and ideas both stagnate in a vacuum.
8. Not everyone is going to like you.
When you think of all the people you’ve met so far, chances are high that you haven’t liked every one of them. In fact, you may have butted heads with some, been indifferent to others, adored a fair number of them, and absolutely despised several others. You might even think about some of them in passing and hope that they’ve fallen into the Bog of Eternal Stench, simply for being such jerks.
Guess what? There are people in the world who think the same way about you. While many of them adore you for being the super-shiny unicorn that you are, others will despise every molecule in your body, for reasons they may never reveal to you.
9. Not everyone’s dreams will come true.
One of my favorite songs by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, “Tell Me Baby”, has the lyric: “Some dreams are meant to be declined.” This is a painful truth to accept, especially for those who have put an enormous amount of time and effort into pursuing the one and only dream that means anything to them.
It hurts deeply to accept that other people will be able to do the things they want because they have the “right” genes or connections. The thing is, when you let go of a pipe dream and refocus that energy on something that’s actually attainable, things get a lot easier. This requires the strength and courage to accept defeat with grace, however, and many people prefer to remain in the realm of hope and possibility, even if it means wasting their lives while doing so.
Final thoughts…
You’ve likely noticed that many daily creature comforts are those that aim to counteract the difficult truths mentioned here. From calendars that help create scheduled certainty to lotions and potions aimed at extending youth and vitality, people have created everything they can to maintain what they love and avoid what scares them.
But accepting truths — especially when they’re difficult — can allay anxieties and make daily life far more peaceful and fulfilling. The key is to gaze at reality with real courage, honesty, and compassion, and not run from what you see there, even though it’s easier to do so.
