If you were to ask your neighbor how truly happy their married life is, what do you think they would say? What about the staggering statistics of people whose relationships endure infidelity? Take a look at recent research that shows how many people are living beyond their means, and the recent revisions that indicate 1 out of every 4 people is losing their home to foreclosure. Alcoholics Anonymous states that 1 out of every 6 families is living with an alcoholic, keeping their family’s struggles a secret at all costs. Today’s drug addicts and pill users are often middle-class, married with children—regular folks trying to hold down jobs and keep up appearances, making sure their “glass house” seems anything but dysfunctional.
According to the American Psychological Association, more people today are being medicated for depression, many of whom are children. There are more kids and teens being counseled and controlled through pharmaceutical drugs than at any other time in history. This doesn’t even mention the fact that 2 out of every 3 teenagers admit to using drugs or contemplating harming themselves or others before they reach the age of 16. While child abuse arrests are on the rise and foster care agencies are brimming with more children than they can handle, experts suggest that only 22% of cases are truly seen and prosecuted. There are also millions of homosexual adults and teens still fearful of coming out, creating lives that perpetuate the lie.
In fact, everywhere you look—whether it’s the glamorous “have it all” marriages made in Heaven in Hollywood or the neighbor down the street who seems to have the perfect life—the truth is that most people are living a lie. A big, all-encompassing lie that whittles away any chance they have at true, genuine happiness.
In a house down the street from yours, there’s a stay-at-home mother wiping away tears because her husband called her a “pathetic piece of crap” who hasn’t done anything in the last ten years. There’s a child being left home alone, sinking into depression and clinging to peers for any shred of hope of being loved. There’s a 13-year-old girl standing on a softball field filled with so much anger and envy that her coaches think she is misbehaved or rude. There’s a frustrated husband who goes to work each day, hoping, wishing he could hide the pills his wife keeps in the drawers to prevent his children from riding around with her after school. The house with the white picket fence and the perfectly manicured yard, home to a husband and wife working all day earning six-figure incomes, reeks of marital disconnect and unhappiness. The extra bedrooms are used for sleeping apart, rather than for guests.
Is there too much pressure today, for people of all ages—married or single—to follow the rules of life so closely that they end up tossing away any chance at true happiness?
And sadly, the ones who are the happiest, the ones living the most authentic lives aligned with their inner beliefs, are often labeled as weird, strange, or worse, selfish. The mom who keeps her career intact because she has a passion for her work is called a ruthless “witch” who doesn’t “care” for her children. The husband who spends his weekends indulging in golf or working on his Shelby Mustang is seen as lazy, incapable of helping his wife with the kids. The lonely individuals who share their lives with an addict are living a lie to hide what they see as their failure from the world. Meanwhile, counseling centers, therapists, life coaches, and empowerment speakers are making more money now than ever before. The self-help market has become a multi-billion dollar industry, helping more people continue living their lies while secretly searching for a way out.
If you look at the trends and what people search for online from the privacy of their own homes, most of it has to do with seeking something—anything—that might make them happy again. The problem is, they are so busy living the lie for the sake of others, for the sake of being the Joneses, that they can’t untangle the complicated quilt of their own happiness.
Or maybe, just maybe, they don’t know where to start looking, because within the map of what is “supposed” to bring us happiness, there are no left turns that could lead us back to where we started.
But who is to blame? Is it the wife who covers her bruises with makeup to hide them from others? Is it those who hide? Is it the ones lying to themselves and the world because they’re embarrassed to admit they might be seen as failures? Is it the parent who hides their child’s problems or pretends their marriage is happy, or cleans up the messes after their spouse gets drunk, perpetuating the lie? Or is it the fact that we’ve created a society where anything less than perfect is deemed unacceptable?
So many of us live the lies of life, the lies of perceived happiness, because of the immense pressure to be “normal.” No one wants to feel that they haven’t been able to provide a life for themselves, their children, their family, that is anything less than perfect. And so, the lies are passed down from one generation to the next, and life is spent weaving a constant string of lies to make unhappiness feel okay.
It’s difficult to know what any of us are afraid of. It’s even harder to understand the silent manifestation of society that keeps so many from breaking free, from spreading their wings, and making the decisions they know in their hearts will make them happy. Whether it’s coming out of the closet or seeking a divorce, the power to make these things happen seems incredibly difficult.
In a million ways—from living under a government we falsely believe we elected, to staying in a marriage that breaks our spirit, to making excuses for why our children are turning to drugs or failing in school—each of us is somehow living a lie. And this lie is robbing us all of the authentic life that is waiting for us.
So, what are you afraid of? What lies are you living today? In the end, if we spend any time at all living a lie, we are not living at all. One of the greatest gifts we can teach our children—and perhaps even ourselves—is to realize that the truth of happiness will set you free.
