Truth

I have learned a lot in the past few weeks.  If that sounds unpleasant, I assure you it has been much more painful than I am making it sound.  It seems as though every time I turn around I've messed something up or misunderstood someone or realized I've gotten off track or discovered something that hurts.

One of the many things I've learned is that the truth can be especially painful when I realize how far it is from my true feelings; The truth of a situation is not changed by how I truly feel about it.  This is probably something I knew once, had learned before, yet lost sight of.  Sometimes the lessons you have to re-learn are the most painful because in addition to what they re-teach you is the sting felt from knowing you’d let yourself forget.

Especially when you are dealing with the truth.

I'll use my job as an example of what I've learned about truth:  One truth about my job is that I need it.  We rely on the income I make from my job to help pay for things like food and a place to live.  Another truth about my job is that it is actually pretty great, all things considered.  I work from home four days a week, which allows me to see my family a lot more than if I was required to work in the office all five days and had to spend an hour each day commuting.  I'm also able to be home during some of the time Ryan is at work, which means one of us is here every day to get the boys off the bus instead of having to hire a sitter to do that.  Those things are truth.

However, when you factor in my true feelings about my job, well, that is a different story.  I don’t hate the actual function of my job, but there are many process and political things I deal with daily that make it quite unpleasant much of the time.  So, the truth is that I have a great job and I should be thankful for it, but my true feelings about it do not always reflect that truth.

I've long believed that a person cannot change his or her feelings simply by desiring to feel a different way.  I have written about this multiple times.  I feel how I feel.  Of course, how I behave from those feelings and the choices I make about them are my responsibility.  I have a say in what I choose and how I act.  However, I can tell myself a million times to feel a certain way or not feel a certain way, but that does not, in reality, change my feelings. 

Feelings are feelings and feelings are true.  They are true because they are the way the heart and mind process life.  Yet just because my feelings about something are true, does not automatically make them truth.  Truth exists, in reality, regardless of how I feel about it. Truth is not dependent on my feelings either way.  Nothing can be truth without also being true, but my feelings can be true without being truth.  And if I screw up and let the true-ness of my feelings get the better of me and allow myself to lose sight of the truth, I am at fault. 

My feelings do not change truth. 

I can want with all my heart for what I feel to be true, but it doesn't change the possibility of it being truth if it isn't; it is either truth or it is not. Sometimes the truth is better than I'd expected.  Sometimes the truth is difficult to face. Sometimes I may not even know what the truth is, only that it is different from what I'd thought. Sometimes the truth is a happy realization, but sometimes the truth breaks my heart.  Regardless, what is true in the way I feel is not necessarily the truth.

There are my true feelings.

And there is truth.

I would be wise to not confuse the former for the latter.