Too Good to be True?

How often have you heard this when explaining a proposal or opportunity to someone?
Quite a lot I’d imagine.
But have you ever heard anyone say “That sounds too bad to be true” when a natural disaster or some other unfortunate event occurs?
I haven’t, and I don’t suppose you have either.
It’s because the media are heavily focussed on ‘bad news’ – what people want to hear for some reason as they find it more acceptable than anything ‘good’.
People are rarely sceptical about something ‘bad’ and even seek out the ‘downside’ or bad side of anything that happens or anything they are offered.
Being sceptical about bad news or looking for the upside is quite rare, even among educated people.
From a very early age we are trained and conditioned to fear.
Fear of failure, fear of disappointment, fear of success, fear of rejection, fear of loss – and the list goes on.
The thing is that none of these things we are conditioned to be afraid of really exist.
They are all feelings, thoughts, ideas.
These are not instinctive fears like fear of predatory animals which are part of our inherent survival system, they’re all artificial, all ‘made up’.
They aren’t even learnt fears like fear of getting burnt or cutting ourselves with a sharp object that we ‘discover’ through play as we begin to develop.
Why do we have these irrational fears?
Essentially, in my opinion, it’s a form of control. Control of our expectations of life, and without entering to some grand conspiracy theory, the purpose is to ensure conformance to the norm.
To discourage us from ‘getting ahead of ourselves’ or ‘getting above our station’ – to keep us in check.
Have you noticed how society very quickly turns against anyone who becomes a ‘success’ in some field or other?
With very few exceptions there is always some ‘dark secret’ to be discovered or even manufactured in order to ‘bring them down’.
It’s part of the wholesale misrepresentation of ‘everyone should have equal opportunity to succeed in life or follow their chosen path’ into everyone should just be ‘equal’.
We end up fearing success because we would no longer be ‘equal’ and our ‘friends’ would desert us (forgetting of course that we’d make new friends).
We hesitate to consider opportunities, especially those which relate to any form of abundance, just in case they might actually work and make us more successful.
Its why most people never achieve their goals or dreams settling often for a watered-down outcome that is not too different from their peers.
“It’s too good to be true” is the reaction emanating from all those false fears we took on board when we were children overhearing what our parents were saying or hearing as ‘asides’ from teachers.
No-one deliberately teaches these fears – they are simply ‘handed down’ and the subconscious mind which cannot discriminate between what it should and should not absorb simply takes it all in.
All this happens before the conscious mind has the ability to understand what is going on and kick in to question these handed down ‘truths’.
What’s the answer?
There’s a trick that we can use when someone makes the TGTBT statement.
It’s the same one that we use when someone can’t recall a simple fact in response to a question like ‘how far is it to London’ and replies ‘I don’t know’.
We can ask “If you did know, what would it be?” and surprise, surprise they come up with an answer which is usually pretty close to the truth.
So when they say “Sounds too good to be true” (often preceded by “I don’t know”) we can simply ask them something like “Well if it were true, what would you do about it then?”
What this does is to by-pass the emotional fear responses popping out of the sub-conscious and engage the conscious mind to consider a more logical approach to the proposal or opportunity.
I’m not saying that you and I should blindly accept anything that is offered, however ‘good’ it sounds, just that we should be open-minded when we are presented with such a proposal or opportunity and look into it ‘without prejudice’.
Which means – to look at things for what they are, and what they are now.
Which means – to discount any mistakes or misjudgements the proposer may have made in the past and to respect the idea that, just as you and I do, they are able to change their mind and change their ways.
Which means – without making a pre-judgement based on past evidence that is no longer true or likely to be true – no longer relevant to the decision in hand.
“Too good to be true” in a nonsensical statement without substance or foundation. It means one of two things:
“I am not ready to receive the abundance this offers me”
“I am not capable of coping with the abundance this offers me”
This will come out if you respond with the question above – ‘what would you do about it?’
People can only respond positively to proposals or offers when they are ready, when their mindset is open to such things, and until then it has to be a process of ‘slow education’ or just keeping in touch – lightly.
People (and that includes you and I) will never do something they are not ready to do.
To become ready, we have to do three things: learn, know and understand.
Only then will we be ready.
Are you ‘ready’?