Unbelievable: Matthew McConaughey in My Inbox

  
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un·be·liev·a·ble
​adjective
Not able to be believed. Unlikely to be true. Extraordinary.

What a foolish word. A rude and disrespectful word.

We think we use it to flatter, to give credit. What an unbelievable play. What an unbelievable film. What an unbelievable act of courage. What an unbelievable sunset. What an unbelievable break.

But why would we define things that are incredible and awesome - things that actually make us believe more - with a word that means the opposite? Something spectacular, phenomenal, outstanding, most excellent, is most definitely not unbelievable.

Awe-inspiring? Magnificent? Prodigious? Extraordinary? Yes. It just happened. You just witnessed it. You did it. Believe it.

Unbelievable? Quite the opposite. Give incredible more credit.

A man flies a suicide jet into the World Trade Center. A coronavirus comes. Hurricanes ravage. Fires burn. Enron’s a scam. The government lies to us. Our best friend lies to us. We lie to ourselves. Our fiancée says “I do.” We won an Oscar. Our child says his first words. One day we find a cure for cancer. One day we die in peace.

Unbelievable? No.
It happened. You witnessed it. You lived it. Believe it.

Acknowledge the existence of greatness and phenoms, excellence and extraordinaries - pleasures and pains. Recognize them as real entities, both beautiful and horrible, tragic and heaven-sent. Be not naïve to awe-inspiring feats of good or good fortune, nor gullible to mankind’s capacity for evil. Be not blind to the credence of natural beauty or disaster.

Nothing God or Mother Nature does is unbelievable. And if there’s one thing you can depend on people being - it’s people.

So why am I bothered by the usage of this word? Because we are not only saying it, we are also living it. What I really think this comes down to is us - each of us - individually. Unbelievable also puts constraints on what we believe we can reach AND it stops us from enjoying our success and ease.

First, the constraints we put on ourselves, the limits we assume about our potential, those are man-made.

Who the hell do we think we are putting ceilings over ourselves? We’re barely tapping into eleven percent.

Take the Icarus story. We think the wax on our wings is melting because we’re flying too close to the sun. Most of the time, there’s still ice and snow on the ground. It’s not even close to hot enough to melt the wax. We’ve got so much farther to fly than we give ourselves credit for.

It’s arrogant for us mortals to put a roof overhead and say, That’s as good as it can get. That’s as much as I can succeed. That’s as much as I can love. That’s as sad as I can be. That’s as happy as I can be. No more.

Secondly, we don’t know how to enjoy success or ease, even the five-star treatment. I struggled with a non-deserving complex for years. If things were going too well, I’d get anxious, masochistic, judgmental. I’d interrupt the flow with a faceplant instead of being cool - enjoying the grapes and palm fronds.

What I know now is this: there’s no need to make it hard on ourselves when it’s going well. It’ll get hard soon enough.

So take the roof off. Say, No - this isn’t even close to as good as it can get. Trust that we have far more capacity than we allow ourselves to believe. Putting a ceiling on ourselves isn’t humility. It’s arrogance.

And learn the art of running downhill. Don’t trip yourself while things are going well. That mountain you want to climb? It’s just around the corner. Don’t invent drama. It’ll come on its own.

Unbelievable happens all the time. Sometimes it’s divine. Sometimes it’s a loogie in the face. Don’t deny it. Depend on it. Expect it. Believe it. Enjoy it.

​REASON

​Here's a study a lot of people call unbelievable. When in fact, the conclusion of it is that belief is what makes it true.

Harvard psychologist and researcher Ellen Langer ran the famous counterclockwise study. In 1979, she took elderly people to a retreat designed to make them feel it was 1959. They listened to songs Perry Como and Jack Benny from the 50s, watched Ed Sullivan on black-and-white television, discussed 'current' events and even dressed like it was 1959.

By the end of the week, their physical health reflected the psychological reversal of time: They showed improved flexibility, memory, hearing, posture, cognitive ability and wellbeing. They even looked younger than before the retreat according to people who knew them.

They believed it.