Vishnu | Vishnusvirtues
When someone repeats something over and over you tend to believe it.
Even if it’s a lie.
Society has perpetuated these falsities throughout our lives, and everyone and their mother has bought into these ideas as “common sense.”
Yet when you question or challenge these ideas, society punches back swiftly, with brute force.
Society doesn’t like anyone who rocks the boat or takes a different path because…you might become happy and fulfilled.
And you might do it on your own terms.
And that’s just…not right.
Society wants you to play by its rules. It wants to be the rule-setter. It wants to be the law-creator and the dream-master. It wants to tell you yay or nay.
Society wants you to succeed on its terms, not yours.
And who is the ubiquitous society that lies to you?
Oh, you know, Mom and Dad. Uncle Lou. The Cooper family next door. The O’Brien family down the street. Nana and Dadaji.
Your community: El Dorado Hills. Folsom. Davis. Yuba City. Fremont. Pleasanton. Visakhapatnam. Chennai. Kolkata. Bangalore. Pune. Hyderabad. Singapore. Hong Kong. Shanghai. Osaka. Kuala Lumpur. Tokyo.
Pretty much anywhere you live in the world.
Your radio station. Your TV shows and telenovelas. Your Hollywood movies and Bollywood cinema (especially your Bollywood cinema!!).
Your Facebook feed, Instagram account and Twitter feed.
Celebrities and politicians.
Authors and journalists.
Your teachers and professors. Your career guidance counselors. Your mentors.
Newspapers and television news.
So how do you combat these lies?
You wake up!
Become aware that society is feeding you a bunch of bold-faced lies.
Challenge society’s assumptions and dictates.
Do what’s right for you and ignore the thundering buzz of lies that society feeds you.
Wake up. Stand up.
Stand up for your own happiness and live your own truth.
10 Lies Society Desperately Needs You to Believe
1) You need top schools and high marks for success.
This is the boldest-faced lie of all. Society feeds it to you from the day you start kindergarten.
All over the world, you hear that your marks and grades in school are what count.
Creativity. Character. Compassion. Kindness. It doesn’t matter. How you do on your next exam matters. How you do in school determines how much your family accepts you. How you perform correlates to how much love you receive.
And how well you do directly relates to your future success.
While, yes, better grades get you into better schools, better colleges and higher-paying jobs – is that really what success is about?
If success is about being happy, not rich, then society is lying to you like an expensive Persian rug.
Top schools and high marks are for people who don’t have confidence and who need external rankings and reputations to validate themselves.
If you have initiative, drive and confidence, focus on what interests you and what you’re passionate about.
Don’t allow your grades to determine your value.
2) You need graduate school and a professional degree to be a success.
You don’t need a &(@_!*! degree from a prestigious university, mate. You need confidence and you need to believe in yourself.
Unfortunately, they don’t teach that class at Yale or Cambridge.
Even if you go to a top graduate program or pick up a fancy professional degree, you have no idea if you’re going to be happy or successful in that field.
You have no more certainty that you’re going to pursue your purpose or find your dream job.
Be patient with the path. Since your dream job won’t find you, go out there and seek a variety of opportunities to help you eliminate jobs and careers that don’t fit.
Run away furiously from soul-crushing work; find work that brings you joy and makes you jump out of bed in the morning.
Do you really need a degree from a top school, considering that many millionaires dropped out of college, many billionaires went to average schools and many successful people never finished high school?
Graduate degrees leave you with debt, consume years of your life and force you to specialize in one career track.
If you’re uncertain about your abilities and if fear paralyzes you, go to a top school.
If you believe in yourself, find work that you’re good at and that you’re passionate about.
3) Pursuing your dreams is for the foolish and naïve.
If you quit your job and write poetry, people will think you’ve lost your mind. A society that sees you as a threat to convention will meet your independence and creativity with resistance.
“Who do you think you are?” it will smirk.
It’s never too early or too late to follow your dreams. And you don’t have to drop everything to start on them.
You don’t have to quit your job, sell your house and live on the streets to launch your music career.
Take small steps today to transition to or create your dream job. You can use a volunteer position, time after the kids have gone to bed, or the weekends to nurture your dreams.
Take small but consistent steps, even if you have a family or financial obligations. Work on your dreams every day. Create time for your dreams.
Society wants you to pursue your dreams only when you’re financially well-off or retired, but don’t delay on getting started.
Start today.
