Contributor, ZenGardner.com
Living the Dream:
“Dreaming and dreaming your freedom away,
The world keeps on turning and taking your days,
And you fall faster and faster and you fall deeper and deeper asleep.”
Go to school. Get a job. Get married. Buy a house. Have kids. Retire. Grow old. Die.
This is the formula for the “American Dream.” We don’t know who invented it and we don’t really know how effective or fulfilling it is. Yet, we chase this dangling carrot mostly because everyone else does. It is one of many societal standards that set the tone for an artificial, victimized and oblivious life. Billions are engaged, mesmerized and imprisoned by “the dream.” They are rendered powerless and fall prey to it. They measure it by their titles, possessions and bank accounts. Most people live out their entire lives never knowing whether or not they actually achieved their dream.
The human race has never reached its full potential. As a global community, we haven’t even seen the horizon. There is a stark distinction between vision and reality. It is difficult to see one’s vision when it hasn’t been defined let alone beheld. The primary reason why we as a society have been unable to transform our lives and our experience of them is our lack of shared and manifested vision. This is the evidence of our narcissistic focus. It prevents us from reaching our full potential as a community. Our vision has been high jacked and manipulated into what we refer to as the “American Dream.”
There is a deficiency of creativity in contemporary culture. Our lack of vision and imagination as a society has chained us to a reality where our dreams are not our own. We surrender our power to numerous people, vices, institutions and circumstances because we are terrified of claiming and expressing it. Eventually we allow the structures of society to shape us into “functionally acquiescent” adults. We settle for positions that give the impression of purpose and achievement. Yet in truth, they are self-centered and serve only the few at the cost of the many. We are so accustomed to this “dream” it has become our life (lie).
The Lie of Life:
At some point in our lives, we are inspired, empowered and enlightened by the epiphany of our purpose and destiny. Once we make a connection with this calling, it continues to transform and expand our very experience of life. It is an eternal energy that illuminates and guides us toward our true passion and expression. There is nothing else in our life that inspires our excitement and fulfillment. The younger we are, the less our egos are developed and the more we are aligned with our true path. Yet, as we mature into adults, we replace our genius with intelligence.
There is the fantasy we all invent of a life we wish to have called our “daydreams.” Then there is the fantasy we all enable with our compliance and participation called “reality.” Most of us get caught between the two in our quest to merely survive. While we bounce back and forth between the two chasing the “American Dream,” we sacrifice our life force. As we succumb to the myriad of influences and obstacles reality imposes, we live further away from our destiny. We become a reflection of a lie instead of an expression of truth.
The lie of life we adopt becomes our reality and eventually our truth. Whenever we encounter the truth of another, we tend to react with defensiveness, self-righteousness, criticism and judgment. Consciously or unconsciously we attempt to diminish their truth to endorse, praise, impose and preserve our own. Living a lie compels us to act superior, eccentric and conceited. It compromises our sincerity, kindness, empathy and possibility. When we allow ourselves to be seduced by the lie of life, we sever our relatedness with our heart and soul. It segregates us from all that is sacred within.
The Forest for the Trees:
Reality is a lie. This is why our lives are a lie in relation to reality. Society has been and is engineered to project an illusion of life. It is a simulation imposed upon the human race to deceive us into believing that it is real, or even true. Our belief in this illusion makes it a reality. This is how powerful we are as human beings. Yet, our power has been manipulated against us to manifest and maintain this illusion we accept as life. Only when we remove ourselves from this global hallucination are we able to see it for what it truly is, an invisible prison that embezzles our energy to sustain its existence.
All of us fight to protect the investment we have in the illusion. We sacrifice anything and everything to hold onto as much of our synthetic paradise we can. Sometime during our early adulthood we stop resisting and revolting against society and reality and we begin to join the ranks of the billions who have succumbed to its merciless influence. We begin to believe that our contribution may make a difference. The rare instances we may find truth in the lie is either our own experience that has little value to others or just another facet of the lie of life. A lie can appear as truth when we believe it into reality.
It is much more difficult to live the lie than it is to live the truth. In this upside down world it may seem easier to give our power away with our vote, dollar, energy, amusement, addictions, obligations and lifestyles to indulge our entitlement as human beings. We have been conditioned to believe that identifying, establishing and living our truth is needless, arduous, painful and dangerous and could lead to fatal consequences. The stigmatism of fear that has shrouded the existence of truth in this world has sustained the illusions of war, greed, violence, murder and environmental holocaust. This is the cost of our compliance to the lie of life.
All of us are accountable for this grand illusion. All of us have enabled it with our fear, failure and unwillingness to be our truth in a world of lies. When given the choice between making a difference and making money, we have eagerly opted for the latter. Our experience of truth is being torn apart by our artificial “responsibility” to the lie that is reality. The greatest lie of life is that reality is “real.” Living this lie gives us a false sense of purpose, security and fulfillment. It is a permissible excuse from standing in our truth. The measure of the lie we live is found in the measure of the truth we sacrifice upon the altar of our vanity, arrogance, expectation and entitlement. Our lives will never come true living in the lie of life. It is only when we create our lives and live them will they become true.
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Source:
http://www.zengardner.com/the-lie-we-live/
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