5 Lies The System Tells And How Believing Them Could Ruin Your Life

The matrix is real.

What you thought was an exciting science fiction film is actually the perfect metaphor for how humanity exists today. Its relevance lies in the portrayal of a human race conditioned into accepting a false reality.

Our matrix (the system) is a little less sophisticated, but no less effective.

Instead of one computer program telling us how life is, we have multiple streams (parents, teachers, the media, government, advertising, peers, work colleagues, bosses or religious leaders) informing us on what life is about, what’s possible and what isn’t, what’s acceptable and what’s not.

I call this reality "false" because a whole universe of possibilities lies outside its boundaries.

We can achieve so much more than we’re led to believe. We can feel a level of happiness and joy we’re told is impossible, and we have a very real power that we’re duped into thinking doesn’t exist.

Life can be the adventurous, exciting and meaningful experience we dream of living, but we have to approach it from a completely different perspective than the one we’re conditioned to adopt.

That’s why I’m presenting you with the five most common lies the system tells us.

I want you to break through all the BS and have the knowledge needed to start living an exciting life that’s authentically yours.

Lie Number 1: Good grades in school are the key to a happy and successful life.

Our parents will insist on it, our teachers will enforce it and our politicians will preach it (when they have an election to win). "Education, education, education" they all cry, but do they really know what they’re talking about?

No, is the short answer. While I’m not advocating a generation of illiterates, it’s important NOT to get carried away with education hysteria.

Good grades in school are NOT the passport to a happy and successful life. In fact, quite often, they lead to a stiflingly conformist life where you join ranks with the 80 percent of adults who feel no passion whatsoever in their working lives.

Instead, specialization is the key. Way before you graduate from high school, start thinking about what you want to do with your life and begin doing it! Why wait? Finding your passion, and being paid to do it, is the key to a happy and successful life. For most of us, this will lie outside the confines of what a school education can teach.

Just ask Richard Branson and the late James Brown. The former didn’t see a day of schooling past 16; the latter, seventh grade.

Lie Number 2: A "good job" is one which earns you a lot of money.

So you’re getting older now. You’ve got those letters by your name and you’re making your first forays into the world of work.

While doing so, you keep hearing parents and friends saying the same line over and over again: "Oh, you know so and so? They’ve got a really 'good job.'"

What do they mean?

Unfortunately, they, like millions of others, have been conditioned into thinking that making a lot of money equates to having a good job.

Forget the fact that you might find the work completely uninspiring, you might be required to work 50 or 60 hours a week or the company you work for is completely unethical. If you get paid a lot of money, then it must be a good job.

WRONG! There’s a big difference between a good job and a well-paying job. Sometimes the two overlap. But, if your job doesn’t make you feel alive, treat you with respect and understand there are other areas of your life just as important as work, then it's not a good one.

Lie Number 3: Trust the experts; they know everything.

Whether we’re looking to make a living blogging, seeking advice on our health or trying to improve a sporting skill, there will always be industry experts telling us how it’s done.

While I’m not advocating complete dismissal of everything they say, I want to strike a cautionary note about putting ALL your faith in their knowledge.

As much as the experts want you to believe they are God (and pay them lots of money), they are NOT. They make mistakes and get things wrong.

Even scientists, who "The System" teaches us to revere as modern deities, can’t agree on their own research. Sunlight and skin cancer is a classic example.

First, we’re told we must avoid sunlight with the urgency of a vampire, and now, we’re told that the Vitamin D boosting properties of sunlight actually help fight cancer. Confusing, huh?

What’s the answer?

YOU have to become your own expert. While learning from others who have more knowledge and experience IS important, you have to figure out what works best for you.

Run your own experiments into how your industry works and never stop finding your own answers.

Lie Number 4: Consumption makes you happy.

"Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy sh*t we don’t need." – Tyler Durden

This is perhaps the greatest lie of them all.

Why do we work 50 to 60 hours a week, for 40-plus years of our lives, in jobs we mainly hate? Beyond making money to meet our basic needs (which most in the Western world don’t have to worry about), it’s because we’ve bought into the system’s dream.

On a subconscious level, we’ve been conditioned to think that the big car, grand house, expensive holidays and designer clothes are the pinnacle of what this world has to offer.

We’ll consume more food, more drugs, more sex and more extreme experiences because the dominant message of our societies is that happiness is to be found in the material.

The evidence, though, suggests otherwise. Amazingly, being in the highest income bracket of your country will only make you 3.5 percent happier than the average. So, why strive for material success when it has such a low impact on our quality of life?

This new understanding gives you the freedom to ditch the system’s dream and find, pursue and live your own.

In the process, you’ll discover one of the most liberating truths known to man: Creation, not consumption, is what makes us truly happy.

Lie Number 5: The individual can’t make a difference.

We’re told that our vote won’t make any difference to the election outcome so we don’t bother. We’re told that we can’t challenge corporations or the government because they’ve got all the resources and all we have is our voice.

We’re told that it doesn’t matter how honest or how good or how much positive action we take, we’ll always be outnumbered by the billions of people out there bringing negativity into the world.

And guess what? We start to believe it. We start thinking that in the grand scheme of things, our lives really doesn’t matter and we can’t have any kind of impact on the problems we’d like to see changed.

So instead, we’ll spend our time playing video games or watching TV, safe in the knowledge that there’s nothing we can do, anyway.

Whether this lie is a mass conspiracy or not, the outcome is the same. The wrong individuals end up having a disproportionate impact over everyone's lives.

You see, contrary to what the system would have us believe, the individual is the ONLY entity that ever makes a difference.

And, when the huge majority of good, decent people are unaware of this power, then it leaves the Rothschild’s, the Hitler’s and the Koch brothers of this world to do as they please.

Remember, every great invention was born in an individual’s mind and every righteous cause was formed of small groups of individuals whose hearts burned with a desire to see the end of man’s inhumanity to man.

By inspiring themselves and others to take action, the individual does make a difference.

What are you gonna do?