“We’re all walking around under a collective illusion, like some kind of cosmic practical joke, where each person thinks everyone else has it together, but nobody really does.”
Have you ever wished you were inside somebody else’s head? Of course you have. If you stop to think about it right now, you could probably come up with several people whose minds you wish you could read. If you are interviewing for a job, you would probably love to know what they think of you. That hot date last weekend, “Why has she not called yet?” Your boss seems upset at something: “I wonder if she did not like my presentation?” You weren’t invited to the party Saturday night: “He probably doesn’t think I am cool enough.” You were invited to the party: “Will he think I am cool enough?” We are each plagued with this kind of incessant mind chatter that is more concerned with what other people think about us than what we want for ourselves.
What’s ironic is that we each feel alone with this chatter. We believe these inner processes are uniquely ours: “Something is wrong with me.” Ashamed of our weaknesses and fearful of others’ opinions, we keep them to ourselves. We put on a mask and pretend all is well. What we don’t realize is that many people around us feel just as anxious and fraudulent and are also pretending. We’re living under a collective illusion, where each person thinks everyone else has it together, and almost no one does.
So we go about our lives restless and uneasy, with a background hum that something is off. Yes, we also feel happy, peaceful, and productive at times, but those states often fade, and the vague sense of “missing something” returns.
The truth: there is nothing wrong with us. These feelings arise from patterns wired into us—part of how the brain naturally operates to keep us safe. The real problem is that we don’t feel safe enough to share them. If we did, we’d discover how common they are. Imagine how different you might feel if you knew that most people you meet are also afraid of judgment or rejection. You wouldn’t need to pretend you have it all together. You could be yourself—and invite others to be themselves. Like talking about the weather, these feelings could become ordinary conversation, and we wouldn’t have to manage them alone.
Why don’t we open up? Because our neural patterns program us to protect ourselves. The psyche’s first priority is survival and safety. Vulnerability can feel dangerous, we fear being judged and rejected. (Social rejection, research shows, activates threat circuits in the brain.) One way to restore safety is to recognize that this is our shared programming—we are in the same boat. Ironically, we are actually more vulnerable and insecure because we are not honest with each other. If we stopped pretending when things aren’t okay, we could expose the illusion and free ourselves to work with these feelings together.
You are not uniquely disturbed. You are human. Let’s embrace our nature and treat its quirks with kindness. With honesty and acceptance, we find that nothing is fundamentally wrong with us—and a great deal is right.
Try this today: Tell one person one honest sentence about what you’re actually feeling. Notice what shifts—in your body and between you.
-Ronit Herzfeld