The truths you hold as evident really matter because you act on them. The United States just celebrated 245 years of independence. It got me considering just how important it is to be completely centered on the kind of thinking described as “straight thinking.” I mean, using your rational brain, can you imagine the risks, sacrifices, and courage it took to forge this country? The insurmountable obstacles that patriots faced defied logic. Yet it was their emotions, tempered with rational thinking, that drove them to risk everything and defy a tyrannical rule. It was the truths they held to be so evident in their lives that they just couldn’t get around them. Isn’t it the same for you and me?  Consider this . . .

Truths You Hold Become Your Beliefs

All around the world, it’s a similar story, isn’t it? No matter the historical backdrop, political motivation or racial divide, people fight for their beliefs. After all, our beliefs are thoughts we’ve accepted as truths – even if they are not actually true. That’s why it’s so important to regularly stop and ask yourself “straight thinking” questions like these:

• Why do I believe that?
• Do I have all the facts?
• Am I just accepting things by word of mouth or have I investigated them for myself?

 These are the questions a person asks themselves with straight thinking. In a recent post, Dr. Lincoln (founder of InnerKinetics®) puts it this way: “Straight thinking is thinking truthfully. But when unchecked emotions run hot, we can easily lose our relationship with “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth” before we know it.”

In other words, the truths you hold as self-evident form the basis of your beliefs and become the reasons for your actions (both good and bad).

Self-Evident Truths Are a Reliable Standard

What are self-evident truths? According to the dictionary, they are truths that are obvious and don’t need explanation. Take the existence of gravity, for example. That’s a truth we don’t have to keep proving true every day. The fact that we’re not floating around in space and things that go up must ultimately come down make that one obvious.

The Founding Fathers held to the self-evident truths that every single human on the planet is made in the image of God and is held as equal in the eyes of God. Those beliefs were so motivating that they pledged their willingness to lose everything and everyone they loved to defend those beliefs — and many of them did. They remain true, self-evident, and a reliable standard for how we should value one another. When others want to blur the lines between Truth and NOT-the-Truth, you have to ask yourself, “What are they trying to accomplish by tainting such an important and reliable standard for making decisions?” Are they trying to escape their own responsibility for self-governance?

Some Truths Need to Become Even More Evident

When my kids were little, we set all our parenting rules around a principle we could stand on – one that would never change: THE TRUTH KEEPS YOU FREE AND IT KEEPS YOU SAFE. As little kids in most homes, this can be proven self-evident throughout our childhood.

Here’s an example. If you tell the truth about where you are, who you’re with or what you’re doing, a responsible adult can more accurately judge that you’re relatively safe. But if you lie about those things, your safety is likely in jeopardy. As an adult, I’m sure you’d agree that the truthfulness and accuracy of travel advisories matter a great deal. Especially when taking your own little kids on a family vacation!

Here’s another example. What if your self-worth is contaminated with a lie? Maybe as you were growing up, the adults in your life spoke to you or about you based on misunderstanding things and that resulting in beliefs that were simply untrue? The actual truth was then NOT evident to you. How might that affect your ability to make good choices on your own behalf?

Start with the Truths You Hold about Yourself

Two final thoughts for you to consider. First, your freedoms are never actually free, right? They’ve been paid for. They aren’t maintained by doing nothing. If that isn’t evident to you, just look back through the history of your ancestors and your countrymen to see what they had to do to earn it or keep it.

Second, even though we’ll always be imperfect at living by this evident principle about the truth, it remains true that it produces freedoms in all its forms. So, knowing the truth about our personal value, our God-given rights and responsibilities, and the costs of keeping our freedoms need to become more and more evident.

Let the truth about who you are and the tremendous value you are to your Creator be your first step in many truths you discover this year. Our team at InnerKinetics is ready to provide that help.  If you’d like some assistance, you can request a consultation and an InnerKinetics consultant will call you to answer questions and schedule your meeting. Schedule an Initial Consultation. If you are more independent and want to cut to the chase, you need not wait for a call back because you can get answers to your questions and schedule your session HERE.