People lie a lot. We don’t do it on purpose most of the time. We do it to protect ourselves—and it works in the short run. But in the long run, it backfires spectacularly.
Most of the time, we don’t know we are lying. The lies we tell most often are the ones we tell ourselves. Richard Feynman is quoted as saying, “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.” Feynman spoke as a scientist, cautioning us to question our own scientific theories, but the quote could easily be used as a general caution for life.
Every time we lie to ourselves we move further from consonant living, the third necessary component in living a spiritually fulfilled life (see the first principle—devotion to something greater than ourselves—and the second principle—community). Consonance is arguably the most important of the three principles and, in many ways, the most difficult. Living in consonance means living life with honesty and integrity and striving to live up to our values as much as humanly possible.
Living in consonance is challenging for many reasons. Some of the most common challenges to consonant living include pressures to earn a living, our tribal instincts, and new evidence that our old ways of thinking and acting are incorrect.
At work, some may compromise their values when asked to do something they don’t believe in. They reason that they need to do what is necessary to support their families. Besides, their internal voice quips, what they are being asked to do is not really so bad. Plus, their boss or colleague is the one making the decisions. But deep inside, they know something doesn’t sit right.
I don’t mean to imply that one’s feelings are always correct, but when we can’t shake a feeling about something being out of alignment, it is time for a personal reevaluation.
Beyond employment concerns, tribal instincts are a powerful challenge to consonant living. When we are confronted with people in our own tribe who do or say something against our values, our first instinct is to justify. This is responsible for the often incomprehensible justifications people make for those in their own political camps. Don’t worry—I will not take sides here. A cursory examination of any political camp shows how ubiquitous this kind of justification is. However, most of us only recognize it when it happens on the other side. If we are honest, we know this is only because we are guilty of just this sort of justification ourselves.
A clue that we are justifying bad behavior or faulty ideas is the initial flash of discomfort when we are confronted with the hypocrisy of our camp. This may come from an interlocutor in a different political tribe, or it may occur to us independently. That flash of hypocrisy should not be ignored. We should sit with this discomfort before we succumb to the reflex to justify and rationalize.
Getting comfortable with discomfort is the beginning of the way back to ourselves. It also may calm tensions and create a more peaceful world. Imagine if people simply admitted to being wrong more often. Imagine we could recognize that the other side has a point even if we disagree with their conclusions. This could diffuse the political polarization and extremes we all encounter. Resisting—or at least delaying—the urge to justify our own tribe’s positions or actions is not a panacea for world peace, but it is a start.
Probably the biggest challenge to consonant living is new evidence that our old beliefs or previous actions are incorrect. Sometimes, the evidence isn’t even new. We are all imperfect and occasionally act against our own values. This doesn’t make us bad—it just makes us human. To understand how this presents a challenge to living in consonance, it helps to review the basics of cognitive dissonance theory.
The theory was first introduced by Leon Festinger in the 1950s and was later popularized in the book Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me) by Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson. There is some debate about how well this theory accounts for the breadth of behavior in different people, but it is useful in explaining much of what we see. The basic theory is that when we have conflicts between our attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors, we strive to reduce the discomfort created by these conflicts. We often do this through justification and rationalization.
Conflicts can arise from acting against our own stated values or beliefs or from seeing evidence that contradicts a belief we hold. The mature thing to do is to evaluate our actions and admit we did something wrong, or evaluate our old belief and update it if needed. But this can be painful.
This is where the danger rears its head. Instead of admitting we were wrong, we begin to rationalize our actions, explain away new evidence, and, in some cases, ignore it outright—because living with cognitive dissonance is too uncomfortable. This is the slippery slope to losing one’s self completely. If we do this enough, we can end up becoming someone our former selves wouldn’t recognize, capable of doing and believing things far away from what we know to be true to our core.
It helps to have an example and it is here I can share something from my own life. I recently parked my car in a lot in New York City. When I went to pick up my car, I realized I did not have any small bills to tip the parking attendant. Out of laziness, I decided to take the car and drive home. As I entered the highway, I realized my mistake. The parking attendant is a low-wage worker. He lives somewhere around the city and likely has high expenses and possibly a family. It’s true I did not have the usual bill denominations to tip him, but what stopped me from going somewhere for change, asking him for change of a 20-dollar bill, or even giving him the full $20?
A wave of guilt washed over me, almost immediately followed by the urge to justify my action. I was stressed and in a hurry. He probably got a bunch of other tips that day anyway. And I am usually a good tipper! What’s the big deal to miss this one time…? And then I caught myself.
This is the slippery slope in action. It’s true I’m human, and I made a mistake out of laziness and stress. But to excuse it this time would only make it easier to excuse it the next time. In a few months, I could become the guy who only tips 50% of the time—or less. I made the conscious decision to sit with the guilt and discomfort for a while, after which I made the conscious decision to forgive myself and resolve to ask for change the next time. This sounds like a minor issue, and it is relatively minor in the scheme of things. But most of life is composed of the little things, and done repeatedly they shape our character.
Consonant living is hard. It can be lonely to stand alone for your beliefs. It can be painful to constantly examine the motives for your actions and positions. And it is painful to admit your mistakes and to jettison beliefs that can threaten your identity. But there are great benefits to living a consonant life.
Updating your beliefs as you learn and gain experience is the only way to lifelong personal growth. Not needing to be right is liberating. It gives you options to explore different ideas and learn new things as we have new experiences and are exposed to new information. Over time, consonant living earns you your own trust and self-respect as you are able to be more honest with yourself. While it shouldn’t be the motivation, practicing consonance will earn the trust and respect of others since they needn’t worry you are lying. Consonance can also translate into less regret. If you live life with the utmost integrity, it becomes more difficult to regret your choices because you know you were always doing your best with the information you had.
Finally, I believe living in consonance means being aligned with your purpose for existence. When you become a walking example of truth and purity, the boundaries between you and the energy web that is existence blur and you become a walking example of unity with everything. So point yourself in the direction of the infinite pole of Truth and embody it as much as humanly possible. You will not regret it.