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I discovered my first Great Lie in third grade. We took 100-question timed math quizzes on Fridays, and I was determined to win the much-coveted prize: a trip to the front of the room to pick a round pin for your backpack (or, if you were a nerd like me, your shirt).
One Friday, I was on question 99 when Ms. Foley rang the bell. “Time’s up!” I felt it in my stomach. I knew it in my heart. I shouldn’t do it—but I did it anyway. I filled in question 100. And I got them all right.
Ms. Foley was also the religion teacher at my Catholic school, and the pins in her basket all had Bible verses on them. When she called me up to choose one, I pulled out a pin that read: “The truth shall set you free.”
The lie wasn’t just the extra answer I filled in. The deeper lie was the belief that I wasn’t okay as I was—that I needed to win, to be chosen, to be “smart” to be worthy.
Versions of that lie have popped up over and over again, pulling me away from Wise Effort. Over time, four big ones emerged:
- I should feel good all of the time.
- I need to fix things in order to feel better.
- I’ll be happy when…
- There is no way out of this.
These are great lies we tell ourselves—but they also link to truths that can set us free.
The First Great Lie: I should feel good
Kids lie all the time. There’s even a developmental bump in lying in middle childhood. As theory of mind develops, kids get better at lying. It’s actually a sign of social intelligence: They care about reputation, shame, and fitting in.
The deeper lie I was bumping into wasn’t just cheating on a test. It was the belief that life should match my preferences. I lied because I lost. I didn’t like what life had to offer. I wanted Ms. Foley to like me. I wanted to feel good.
You’re likely facing bigger stakes than a math quiz:
- A health condition you don’t want
- A relationship that hurts
- A living situation that grinds you down
- A political system that makes you mad and sad
The First Great Lie says, “This shouldn’t be happening.” So you scramble: You lie, resist, control, push—often in ways that go against what you know is true.
For every lie, there is a truth. In Buddhism, there are four of them and they are called Noble Truths, because when you see them, they ennoble you. The First Noble Truth is: Life is dissatisfying. Pema Chödrön writes, “It’s part of being human to feel discomfort.” Sylvia Boorstein says, “Life is challenging.”
My third-grade translation? Life sucks sometimes. Which brings us to the second lie.
The Second Great Lie: You Need to Fix Things to “Feel Better”
Steven Hayes, founder of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, is famous for saying the goal isn’t to feel better, but to get better at feeling.
Yet most of us live as if feeling better is the goal. So we:
- Hide what’s really going on
- Avoid the hard conversation
- Say yes when our whole body says no
- Numb out, check out, scroll away from what hurts
Try this instead:
On one side of a page, list the painful things you wish would go away—your relationship, your weight, your chronic pain, the mistake at work, the perpetually cluttered counter.
Then, make two columns: Fix and Avoid.
- Under Fix, list everything you’ve done to fix these problems (meds, diets, self-help, pleasing, yelling)
- Under Avoid, list what you do to not feel them (wine, scrolling, fantasy, overwork)
Then ask: How well is this working for me?
In ACT this is known as Creative Hopelessness—the realization that your “feel better” strategies are actually amplifying suffering. This points to the Second Noble Truth: Our resisting, fixing, and grasping is what tightens the knot.
The Third Great Lie: You Will Be Happy When…
In third grade, I thought I’d be happy when I won the prize. That lie grew up with me:
- If he dates me, I’ll feel better.
- When I get through this PhD, I’ll feel better.
- When my baby sleeps through the night, I’ll feel better.
- If my book proposal gets accepted, I’ll feel better.
You have your own list.
Underneath these stories, as Courtney Smith and Elise Loehnen write in Choosing Wholeness Over Greatness, we’re usually chasing control, approval, and safety. That chase pulls us off track from the Third Noble Truth: Peace and freedom are possible here and now—even with things as they are.
Your body, job, relationship, and circumstances don’t have to change for you to get better at feeling. As you get better at feeling, you free up more energy for what you actually care about.
Life is dissatisfying and you can still move toward your values—kindness, courage, connection—even in the presence of dissatisfaction.
The Fourth Great Lie: There Is No Way Out of This
After enough failed “I’ll be happy when…” experiments, many of us land here: There is no way out. Positive psychology calls it learned helplessness.
In Wise Effort, I write about a bird trapped in a kitchen, flying at a closed window. Over and over, its head hits the glass. When we’re caught in these Great Lies, we believe this is the only way. We just fly harder at the same strategies that get us nowhere.
Until we realize there might be another way. As Thich Nhat Hanh says, “The way out is in.”
To find it, we have to soften: get curious, open up, and gently re-focus our energy.
Practice:
1. Write down three of your own Great Lies, maybe lies like…
- “I have to do what my family wants for them to love me.”
- “I can’t handle people being mad at me.”
- “I don’t have worth now that I’m not working.”
2. Then, write down the opposite of each.
- “I don’t have to do what my family wants for them to love me.”
- “I can handle people being mad at me.”
- “I do have worth now that I’m not working.”
Try them on—even 5%—and notice what shifts.
This is cognitive flexibility: a little more space inside your mind and heart. From there, you might glimpse the Fourth Noble Truth: There is a path. Freedom is possible here and now. The path includes things like wise speech, wise livelihood, wise mindfulness—and of course, Wise Effort.
Just like my pin promised in third grade: The truth will set you free.
I believe that even more now.
