Life is a bundle of illusions and fallacies.

That time of the day when the inner voice starts knocking.

Your whole life is one huge bundle of fallacies intertwined like the inconceivable roots of the magnanimous living bridge of Meghalaya. Every decision you make, every word that comes out of your mouth, every action, every preference, every single perspective you hold, you name it, it’s all some kind of a fallacy or an outcome of that fallacy. And do you know what the coolest part is ?

You’re not aware of it.

You’ve been carefully conditioned in such a way that you start believing that all the moves you make in life, is because of who you are and what your personality is. Nope. You’ve been told so, and you bought it.

You walk into a store, you find a huge discount on a product which says- “Only three pieces left”, and suddenly there’s a subconscious urge to buy it, though it’s not required . You resist it for a while, but when you walk out of the store, it’s in your basket. Scarcity bias – a fallacy. You fell for it.

You walk in front of the mirror, and the mirror says you look fat. You call your chubby sister/brother to your room and take a photo with him/her. You look better now. Contrast effect – a fallacy. That’s how the whole media world works. If you wanna look smart, hang out with idiots.

You watch your favorite sportsperson on screen. You get heavily inspired by them. You end up believing that if he/she could do it, it must be a piece of cake, and obviously even you could do it. You see your favourite author who became an overnight success with one epic book, and you believe that even you could become a best selling author in a jiffy. Wrong. Survivorship bias – a fallacy. Apparently, most of us only see the tip of the iceberg, or don’t bat an eye for the ones who didn’t see the light of the day in their field. We overlook all of them and create our own illusions and conclusions. We then get our hearts broken when reality creeps in.

You walk into a pet shop and the shopkeeper gives you the cutest and the costliest puppy he has. You then ask for it’s price and it’s way out of your budget. Then the shop keeper pulls out his weapon – “You can keep it with you for a week or two. He seems to like you. You can bring it back later”. You happily take that puppy home, but after a week, you end up owning it in your mind. You later walk back to the shop, and buy it, though it’s still not in your budget. Why ? Endowment effect – a fallacy. We consider something to be more valuable once we start owning them. Well played shopkeeper.

You walk up to the teacher and you ask him/her some kind of a question that’s been bugging you for quite sometime. The teacher gives you an explanation that somehow doesn’t convince you. You have your doubts on the genuinity of the answer, but you believe what he/she said .Why? Authority bias – a fallacy. If an expert says something, it has to be true. Not necessarily. If that was the case, India has hundreds of eminent economists. Why then, are we limping?

Similarly, there are numerous fallacies shaping our lives without our slightest indulgence. We’re made sheeps most of the times, because falling prey comes rather easy to us than putting in the effort to stand up to our own inner voices. Most of us are stuck deep inside the matrix. It’s high time we realise it.

Don’t part with your illusions. When they are gone, you may still exist, but you have ceased to live.

-Mark Twain