Useful not true
We’ve become a truth-obsessed society, and until recently, I thought that was a great thing.
Truth is overrated.
What even is true?
It seems that we each have wildly different perceptions of reality which results in something shocking.
We develop our own truths.
My truth comes from a lifetime of unique personal experiences. Your truth comes from yours.
But whose truth is the real truth?
It’s a pointless question.
Your truth doesn’t necessarily supersede my truth. All that matters is that it’s true (and useful) to you.
Why useful you ask?
We’ll get to that in a second.
Flip through any history book and you’ll find war after war fought over truth. Sit in on any couples therapy session and you’ll find each partner turning blue in the face trying to convince the other of their truth. Examine any legal battle and you’ll find witnesses proclaiming their story is, you guessed it, the truth.
Starting to see a trend?
For the longest time, I thought I needed to spread my gospel of truth far and wide because well, isn’t that my duty?
No. I finally woke up. I will never convince you of my truth. And that’s OK.
I wasted so much time fighting this losing battle. It led to lost arguments and even worse, tarnished relationships.
I held onto my truths so tightly that it was ruining my life.
Been there?
So I took a step back and asked myself, “What if truth isn’t universal?”
Now let’s return to useful.
Usefulness is underrated.
When’s the last time you had to lie to yourself to do something that you know you should do? It’s been about two hours for me.
I lied to myself by thinking I needed to guzzle a full pot of coffee before I could write this. True? Of course not. But useful? You betcha.
*Side note. Why does writing feel 100x easier after injecting caffeine into the bloodstream? Is it really the caffeine or just the placebo effect from sipping a warm beverage?
Maybe a glass of warm water would be just as effective. Eh, I’ll stick to coffee.
OK, where were we?
Ah, yes.
If something is useful to you then who cares if it’s true? That’s beside the point. All that matters is if it works.
I don’t need some double-blind, placebo controlled clinical trial to convince me that coffee helps me write. My own experience has proved that. What if the trials concluded that to be categorically false? Should I trust the science and stop? No thank you.
Truth is never settled. It’s constantly evolving. You don’t have to look hard to find examples of “truths” that our ancestors clung to like a kid with an ice cream cone.
The Sun revolves around the Earth. Sadly, a survey from 2014 found that twenty-six percent of Americans still believe this.
Humans only use ten percent of their brains. After many human encounters, I see why we thought this.
It takes seven years for chewing gum to digest. I freaked out the first time I swallowed a piece in second grade thinking it wouldn’t come out until high school.
Much of what we consider to be true is just a strongly held belief. There’s a big difference.
I stumbled upon this quote often attributed to George E.P. Box:
All models are wrong, but some are useful.
I like that, but I’ll slightly tweak it. All truths are wrong, but some are useful.
I’ve adopted a few useful (maybe) not true practices for one simple reason. They work more often than not.
Walk outside to get creative ideas flowing.
Take a cold shower in the morning to help me wake up.
Look at my reflection in the mirror and shout, “I feel spectacular!”, even when I don’t.
Each of us have come up with truths that help us in life. Who cares if they are actually true? As long as they are useful, that’s enough.
What useful (maybe) not true practices have you adopted?
They may be worthless to others but if they are useful to you then, by all means, carry on.
It’s time to stop researching what’s true and start experimenting with what’s useful.
How can you start cultivating more useful not true-ness into your life?
Observation.
Become a keen observer of your self.
Reject what the experts say you should do. With enough time, those experts will be laughed out the room.
What works for you?
Do more of that.
Embrace your useful not true approaches to life.
They’ve gotten you this far.
PS - Derek Sivers got me thinking about this after he mentioned that it will be the subject of his next book. I’m certain he will do it more justice than I have.
I love reading and responding to your insightful comments. Comments are below.
This is such a fantastic articulation one of my absolute favourite/most used quotes — “I reject your reality and substitute my own.”
Also, your second point about humans using 10% of their brains legit made laugh out loud 😁
There’s such a great parallel here with conventional medicine endorsing its truths. Even in the face of personal experience (as well as gold standard evidence), we still hear doctors who are treating patients with cancer, diabetes, multiple sclerosis say that “diet is not important”. Those who try and find diet useful - life changing, even - don’t need THE truth. Nor - as you’ve reminded us - do they, or we, need to convince others that THE truth is not as useful as it sounds. The challenge, I guess, is when THE truth is not only wrong, but not useful. Imagine the suffering that could be alleviated if THE truth were true and useful.