1. Life is Hard
This may be true for the majority of people, but not true for all the people. The main motivation behind this belief is that the majority of people are born into poor or middle-class families, therefore the experience they have is one of financial struggle from their youth.
That is not true for people born into rich families who have experienced neither hardship nor poverty.
Of course, in life, we have to sometimes face awful circumstances all the time like famine, war, violence, abuse, and death, but these are normal circumstances of life and don’t mean that life is hard.
2. Everything happens for a Reason
The way we like to comfort ourselves is that “there is a purpose to everything in life”. Of course, destiny or fate is such a comforting idea to toil with as food for thought, especially when things don’t go our way, and in some cases, it may be true in that one thing may lead to another, but this is hard to prove.
The misconception seems to emanate from the age-old ‘law of cause and effect’, propagated by economists and scientists for centuries, and in some cases, that’s how things seem to go.
However, in real life, the end doesn't always justify the means and there are many things in life that happen for no reason at all. Some of these things may be good while some may be bad, but they happen not because they were planned to happen. There is simply no explanation of why they happen.
3. Some things happen by Luck
When the way things happen seems to be too much of a coincidence, people tend to quickly credit or blame ‘luck’. This comes from an age-old belief but there is no proof that luck does exist.
On the contrary, most things tend to go wrong and this doesn’t prove that they happen due to bad luck or otherwise.
As a matter of fact, an entire gambling and betting industry is built around this misconception, which goes to show how far people can go to build their lives on a misconception.
4. Life was better in the Past
This common misconception seems to emanate from an economic perspective but this is only because economic factors play the biggest role in our lives today than they did in the past.
Actually, life is better economically today, there are more millionaires in the world, and there are more opportunities today than there were in the past.
The misconceptions come from people’s spending habits today compared to the past. More people are spending more money on consumption than they are in savings and investment, therefore their net wealth has been declining over the years.
5. People get what they deserve
This misconception makes the assumption that there is a cause and effect. Although it makes sense for things to happen as a consequence of actions, people may not always get what they deserve. In fact, people who have done some bad things sometimes do get away with it, while some seemingly innocent people may suffer consequences for which they were not responsible.
Sometimes, people face terrible things even though they do not deserve it.
6. The rich are rich because they just got lucky.
According to random studies on self-made millionaires, only 8% say they accumulated their wealth because of random good luck. 92% say random good luck had nothing to do with their wealth. While this 92 % acknowledged that luck was a factor in the accumulation of their wealth, it was a different type of luck called "Opportunity Good Luck."
This means that these 92% attribute their success to a combination of factors including hard work, opportunity, persistence, and habits. They also attributed their success to a “never quit and never give up spirit”, even when they failed.
27% of these people failed at least once in business but picked themselves up quickly, and figured out what went wrong, and tried again.
7. Everything happens for a good reason
Things don’t always happen for the good. This is just a way of looking at life positively and to encourage ourselves but is not true for everyone.
There are many unfair things happening all around the world. People aren't killed for a good reason. People are not killed in road accidents for a good reason. Don't assume the events of catastrophic proportions that take place in the world daily are always for good.
8. Marrying will change my Life
Finding a good soulmate to share life is good but don’t assume that it will change your life. In fact, they may or may not change your life.
Marrying a lifetime partner will not change life for everyone. In fact, this depends on the contribution of effort and that of your partner that you bring into the relationship.
Clinging onto the idea that a person will come in your life and all your miseries will just come to an end is too naive. It may or may never happen.
9. Opportunities come But Once.
This is simply not true. Opportunities may come many times in your lifetime, but you may fail to recognize them if your mental faculties and abilities are not properly tuned to be ready for them and grab them.
Sometimes you might even see them, but fail to take advantage due to lack of readiness or lack of money or some other factors beyond your control.
10. "Life will Work for the Better”
This will only work if you work it. The challenges of life are many and you can’t just leave it to chance. The struggles of a 20-year-old compared to a 40-year-old are not the same.
For example, a 20-year-old may have an advantage in accumulating wealth than a 40-year-old because the 20-year-old has more time on his/her side if they start early, but it won't necessarily get them anywhere if they don’t work for it.
11. Money does not buy happiness
You must have heard this from your grandmother a thousand times while growing up, so it’s nothing new.
As I remember, each time I was broke with a mountain of bills to pay I found myself miserably sad and depressed.
However, the moment money came into my hands, I always thought it was a miracle from God. Not to mention how my mood would change suddenly, and if you had met me during one of those times you’d think I had won the lottery. My face would be beaming with sheer happiness and I would be smiling to everyone I meet, even complete strangers.
12. Some People were born Luckier than others.
The belief that some people are born luckier than others seems to have been passed on for generations and seems to get stronger by the day.
I don’t know where this age-old fallacy came from but in my life, I’ve been privileged to see people who were quite disadvantaged judging from the places and circumstances where they were born, turn the tables around and defy this belief.
In fact, I’ve seen people born into utter poverty turn the tables around by working hard, and become some of the richest people in the neighborhood. Ok, maybe they didn’t work as hard as I thought but the more they worked hard, the more they seemed to get lucky.
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