There’s a thin line between delusion and faith, and in many stories of personal success those lines are blurred. While delusion can be extremely destructive, most people never consider the fact that delusion, by its very nature, can also be a powerful driving force in our lives. I propose a seemingly radical theory: that delusion can actually be good for you.
What is delusion? Wikipedia says that its “commonly defined as a fixed false belief and is used in everyday language to describe a belief that is either false, fanciful or derived from deception”. While that certainly doesn’t sound like it could be at all positive, perhaps we should think about whether there could be value in having false or fanciful beliefs. Although the role of faith in religion or spirituality would seem to be the intuitive choice for what to talk about next, I’m ignoring the religious aspect of “delusion” and “faith” because this article really isn’t about that.
Instead, lets examine the role of having delusions in our personal lives. For our purposes, a delusion is “a false or fanciful belief”. Could believing in something false or fanciful ever be a good thing? I’ll go a step further and ask: who determines or decides whether something is false? If you have dreams of being the next Michael Jordan or Bill Gates, who decides whether that dream is false? Michael Jordan was cut from the basketball team his freshmen year of high school. If he told you then that his driving ambition was to be in the NBA and subsequently the best basketball player in the world, 99.9% of people would have called him delusional (the other 0.01% being his family). Without believing in himself and believing in a “delusion”, no matter how unrealistic or impossible it seemed, he may not have made it as far as he did. In fact, he may not have made it at all. Believing in yourself and what you can do, contrary to what others may say, remains a delusion only until the day that you prove everyone wrong. Your delusion, after all those years, turned into an accepted truth, and only because you had the guts to believe in your “delusion” all those years.
One of the factors at work here is the idea of “self-fulfilling prophecies”. The world may tell you that you are delusional but until your story plays out, no one knows for sure what the truth will be. The nay-sayers could very well be right and you may never amount to anything, but at this point, right now, nothing has been set in stone. Your “delusion” still has a chance of becoming reality. And if you believe that you will one day do what people say is impossible, that delusion of yours could change into a reality. But only if you try.
A delusion, in the form of a dream that every person has, at times may be the sole provider of hope and solace that you cling to throughout your darkest periods. The world will often call your dreams “delusions” because the world, by nature, is a harsh and impersonal place. The world is what it is, and there’s no need be resentful for it, because your dreams are your own and only you can be expected to nurture them. Until the day that it is realized, you have to be prepared to keep that dream (or delusion) alive by believing in it, no matter the odds.
Read my follow-up article, The Power to Change Reality, about how those with vision use this power to change the world.