According to the Washington Post, President Trump told 30,573 lies or misleading claims during his presidency. Whether we believe that this behaviour was self-serving, malicious, or necessary depends on your point of view. Perhaps the Washington Post has slightly exaggerated the case? Afterall, even for someone as apparently accomplished at manipulation as Donald Trump, over 20 false statements on average for every day of his term does seem slightly excessive. That would mean barely anything he said was true?
Who do we believe? Can we believe anything anyone says? Do we need to?
We take information in from whatever sources we trust, form our own opinions, and inevitably our perspective will differ from others. So then who is right? Are we right, and everyone else is wrong? Or is it possible we may be wrong? Does it matter?
We could drive ourselves crazy over-analysing political integrity issues.
But what about our own integrity? What thoughts do we tell ourselves about ourselves?
· It’s just part of getting older, isn’t it?
· There’s not enough time
· I’m too busy taking care of everyone else
· I’ll never be … thin, beautiful, confident, able to walk/run/swim/dance/sing/play piano …
· Everyone is watching me, judging me
· I can’t laugh/live/love/leave because …
· I can’t afford to
· Everything always turns to s..t for me
· I’m better than the other guy
· When I have a new xyz I’ll be happy
· I can’t trust other people, they’re all liars, cheats …
· I can’t because 20 years ago someone was horrible to me, I can never forgive that, I’m so angry!
And the list goes on, and on. How many times per day do we tell ourselves these things? Maybe Trump is not on his own here?
The problem is whether what we tell ourselves is true or not, we usually tend to believe it, intellectually, emotionally and physically. “Our mind is our karma” as Ram Dass said. So whatever we tell ourselves tends to become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Like attracts like.
So if we believe we are not enough, then we never are. If we believe we never have enough time, then our life will always be “one damned thing after the other”, as Winston Churchill said. And if we believe that we are better than the other guy, by whatever measure, then we create division between ourselves and them. Both negative and positive opinions about ourselves feed our ego and strengthen our position. And separate us from others. Is our need to be separate based on fear? Where does that belief come from? Our parents? Where did they get it from?
What should we believe?
Maybe that’s the wrong question. Maybe what we should be asking is:
“Should we believe any thoughts?”