Full of lies and fabrications, but truer for their inclusion

There’s a popular bumper sticker you’ve probably seen that reads, live the life you love.

It’s an uplifting and inspiring message about being true to yourself.

But tears ago, I’ll never forgetting driving past a car in the parking lot of my local post office that had the same sticker, but with one modification.

The third letter in the third word had been scratched off.

I’m not sure if it was intentional or not, but either way, the sticker now read, live the lie you love.

Talk about a play on words.

And yet, there’s something really powerful about that message too. In a confusing, challenging and changing world, sometimes the best defense is a good lie.

Sometimes the best way to cope with our reality is to find healthy ways to alter our perception of it.

Burton’s imaginative and touching story about a man who thought he was a big fish comes to mind. In the opening credits it prefaces the movie with the following disclaimer:

This is a story, full of lies and fabrications, but truer for their inclusion.

What’s beautiful is, throughout the movie, the main character shows that sometimes it’s impossible to separate the fact from the fiction, the man from the myth. Sometimes people tell their stories so many times that they become those stories.

That may be delusion, but it’s not dishonest. Story is a survival tool. We remember the past the way we need to, not the way it happened. We talk to ourselves about the present the way that soothes us, not the way that’s accurate.

Who cares if those stories might not be true? If creating a powerful, functional delusion for ourselves administers the necessary anesthesia to survive the human condition, then so be it.

Authenticity is highly overrated. Live the lie you live instead.

Tell yourself what you need to hear. Learn to develop creative and healthy ways of shifting your reality and altering your awareness and expanding your consciousness.

It’s one of the great survival tools we have.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
Which fabrications make your story truer for their inclusion?