Three Reasons "Live Your Truth" Is A Dead End
1. It is illogical.
Let’s use the illustration of our road system to prove the point. Our ability to go anywhere in our vehicles and arrive at our intended destination is based upon a truth outside of ourselves—established roadways. We have to follow the roads on the map and GPS. Truth is like our roadway system. It is established and we choose to search for it and live by it, or not.
Living your truth is like trying to drive where there no roads exist or driving without regard for laws of the road. One will likely end up lost, or with a damaged car not suitable for “off-road” or even worse, injured and/or even responsible for injuring others in an accident. If everyone lives their truth, the result is mayhem.
2. It nullifies your right to moral outrage.
Live your truth nullifies any right to moral outrage. Who has the right to determine whose truth is right or wrong? You have no basis to evaluate or criticize anyone’s claims or actions because they are living their truth. We end up living in a society as in the days of the biblical time period of the book of Judges, “everyone did what seemed right to him” (Judges 17:6).
If everyone lives by his or her truth then power decides the victor, which leads to oppression and injustice in society. Think about Hitler, for example. He used power to advance his ghastly and evil agenda. History would tell us that “live your truth” only leads to fragmentation and disintegration of society.
3. It is a burden you weren’t mean to bear.
“Live your truth” appeals to self-expression but it places an enormous burden on the self as the source of truth. Live your truth is wearisome. As French sociologist Alain Ehrenberg points out in The Weariness of the Self, the self-creating person turns out to be fragile and “weary of her sovereignty.” Is it any wonder that in the age of the self we are more anxious and wearier than ever?
Instead of living your truth, have you considered to live by the truth? In the next post we will address three reasons to live by the truth of Jesus.
Let’s use the illustration of our road system to prove the point. Our ability to go anywhere in our vehicles and arrive at our intended destination is based upon a truth outside of ourselves—established roadways. We have to follow the roads on the map and GPS. Truth is like our roadway system. It is established and we choose to search for it and live by it, or not.
Living your truth is like trying to drive where there no roads exist or driving without regard for laws of the road. One will likely end up lost, or with a damaged car not suitable for “off-road” or even worse, injured and/or even responsible for injuring others in an accident. If everyone lives their truth, the result is mayhem.
2. It nullifies your right to moral outrage.
Live your truth nullifies any right to moral outrage. Who has the right to determine whose truth is right or wrong? You have no basis to evaluate or criticize anyone’s claims or actions because they are living their truth. We end up living in a society as in the days of the biblical time period of the book of Judges, “everyone did what seemed right to him” (Judges 17:6).
If everyone lives by his or her truth then power decides the victor, which leads to oppression and injustice in society. Think about Hitler, for example. He used power to advance his ghastly and evil agenda. History would tell us that “live your truth” only leads to fragmentation and disintegration of society.
3. It is a burden you weren’t mean to bear.
“Live your truth” appeals to self-expression but it places an enormous burden on the self as the source of truth. Live your truth is wearisome. As French sociologist Alain Ehrenberg points out in The Weariness of the Self, the self-creating person turns out to be fragile and “weary of her sovereignty.” Is it any wonder that in the age of the self we are more anxious and wearier than ever?
Instead of living your truth, have you considered to live by the truth? In the next post we will address three reasons to live by the truth of Jesus.
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