February 24, 2022
“Live your truth.”
It’s an appealing phrase that you see plastered all over social media in memes and lengthy posts from people who’ve just had some sort of breakthrough.
But what does it mean?
First of all, before you read this article I highly recommend you read this article about Truth first. If you do, this article will make a lot more sense.
In my opinion, the best way to live a happy and free life is to align your life with the objective Truth as much as possible. This includes Truth that is emotionally difficult to accept. Why do I think this? Because the less you live inside a fantasy world, the happier you’ll be.
When you’re not operating with the entire Truth—whether that be in matters of money, your romantic relationships, your spiritual life, your health, etc.—then you are operating less efficiently than you otherwise could be. If you are misguided enough, then you might actually bring harm to yourself and others.
An obvious example to illustrate this is the Truth of 2+2=4. You can believe all day that 2+2=5, and it’s your right to do so and no one can force you to believe otherwise. But try balancing your checkbook, calculating the taxes you owe for the year, and managing your investments all while assuming that 2+2=5. You’re going to create a bunch of problems for yourself because you’re not operating with the Truth. You may emotionally prefer that 2+2=5, but clinging to that belief isn’t doing you any favors in your financial life.
Another slightly dated example was back when Donald Trump was still president and pissing off everyone with his tweets and sordid personal life. A large portion of the population took to posting “not my president” on social media. While I understand the sentiment behind the notion, I couldn’t help but think these people looked a little silly. I thought to myself: “Yes, as a matter of fact, Donald Trump is your president. You don’t have to like it, but it’s the objective Truth.” We saw the inverse of this when Joe Biden beat Trump in the 2020 election and a bunch of Trump supporters were pretending like Biden wasn’t the real president. Once again… objective Truth.
Another more applicable example is Christianity. If you’re reading this blog, you probably spent a good portion of your life in the Church believing in the Christian God and that the Bible was his inerrant word. Now that you’ve deconstructed, it’s highly likely that you’re living a life that is far better than the one you lived when you were in the Church. Why is that? For a myriad of reasons, but the overarching one is that before you were living under a paradigm that you believed to be the truth, but it wasn’t. Now, you’re operating much more closely to the Truth, and thus your life is better.
What does all this have to do with “living your truth?”
Well, I personally think that a much better life motto is, “Live the Truth.” As I said earlier, the more closely aligned with objective Truth you can bring your life, the happier and freer you will be.
However, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with “living your truth” provided you keep it in its proper perspective. The way I see it, “your truth” is a list of attributes and preferences that are true for you, that are not universally applicable and do not transgress on anyone else.
Here are some examples:
- It may be true for you that living next to the beach is the best way to have a happy life. It may be true for someone else that living in a winter climate is the best way to have a happy life.
- It may be true for you that having as few material possessions as possible is the best way to live life (i.e. minimalism). It may be true for someone else that having more comforts and possessions is the best way to live life.
- It may be be true for you that rising through the corporate hierarchy of your company is the motivational drive that gets you out of bed in the morning. It may be true for someone else that creating art and music all day is the motivational drive that gets them out of bed.
Essentially, “live your truth” means to discover what is true for you, what makes you happy, what makes you feel fulfilled, what makes your own life worth living, and to actually embody it. It also means to not live someone else’s truth for you. The opinions of your pastor, your family, or your friends do not matter here. Your life is not for them to determine. In this way, “live your truth” is actually very good advice.
“Living your truth” does not mean, however, that you can make up what is True and what is not. Note the capital “T.” Objective Truth is “that which is” and there is not a single belief that can be held by a single person that can change it.
It is not absolute, objective Truth that living near the beach is the best way to live, or that being a minimalist will make you the most happy, or that getting promoted up the corporate latter will make you fulfilled. Of course not. Those are personal preferences, personal “truths” that all individuals should be free to explore and engage in as they see fit.
So when you say you want to “live your truth” I think that’s great, and I think that everyone should do that, particularly if you’ve recently left fundamentalist religion. However, keep the phrase in perspective and don’t take it as a license to make up a bunch of alternative facts about reality that are not actually True. Because once again, if you live too far away from objective Truth, then you aren’t approaching reality in the most effective and beneficial way.