“Don’t Believe Everything You Think”

People often imagine that to create something meaningful, you need some grand event — like surviving an accident, climbing Everest, or spending forty days meditating in a cave. My story is much simpler… and maybe that’s why it’s more interesting.

I didn’t find my calling in some big temple of wisdom. I found it in the tiny places life hides its secrets: the way a tea glass leaves a circle on the table, the silence after an argument, the flicker of hesitation in someone’s eyes before they speak. These small things became my laboratory. And out of this laboratory, I created something I call Mind Flow.

Mind Flow wasn’t born in a flash of lightning. It came like water — slowly, persistently, carving its way into my life. I tested it in everything: fasting to see how hunger lies to me, watching how my cravings negotiate like clever salesmen (“just one bite won’t hurt”), catching myself replaying the same thought a hundred times as if the 101st time would finally give me peace. I read neuroscience, psychology, philosophy — but I didn’t stop at reading. I experimented on myself, on life, on every ordinary moment that most people scroll past.

One evening at a tea stall, I watched two men nearly break into a fight over ten rupees. From a distance, it looked like the finals of some high-stakes economic debate. But as I watched, it struck me — they weren’t fighting about money. They were fighting with their minds. Each man’s mirror had repainted reality, convincing him beyond doubt that he was right. That’s when I laughed to myself: the mind is not a mirror of truth, it’s a mirror that lies.

That tiny street-side moment summed up everything I had been learning for years. Life doesn’t always hand us big revelations. It gives us small reflections — and if you pay attention, those reflections are enough to transform the way you live.

And that’s why I write. Not to sound like a guru or to preach wisdom. I write because I see life differently, and I can’t resist sharing it. My Mind Flow is about noticing the invisible currents inside us, the lies and the truths, the impulses and the insights. It’s about laughing at the tricks your brain plays while also learning from them.

So if, while reading, you pause for a moment, smile, or think to yourself, “I never saw it that way before,” then my Mind Flow has already done its work.

The Mirror That Lies – Core Idea

Have you ever looked in the bathroom mirror first thing in the morning and thought, “Is this me or a badly Photoshopped version of me?” The mirror never really shows you the whole truth. It flattens, flips, distorts — and depending on the light, it either makes you look like a movie star or a ghost who hasn’t slept in years.

Our mind does the same thing.

What you see, feel, and remember is never reality itself. It’s your brain’s edited version of it — cropped, filtered, retouched, and sometimes completely fabricated. The mind is less like a camera and more like an Instagram account with an overenthusiastic editor.

Think about it. When someone doesn’t reply to your message for hours, is it reality that bothers you? No. Reality is simple: they didn’t reply. What actually bothers you is your brain’s painting of that silence — “they’re ignoring me, they hate me, I must have said something stupid, maybe they’re plotting my downfall.” Suddenly, a blue tick becomes a Shakespearean tragedy.

The mirror of the mind is not passive. It is an artist. And like most artists, it exaggerates, dramatizes, and sometimes lies for effect.

The Types of Lies the Mind Tells

a) Memory Distortions

Two siblings can sit at the same dinner table, eat the same food, and twenty years later tell two completely different stories about it. One says, “That was the happiest time of my life.” The other says, “What? That was the year I suffered the most!” Who’s right? Both. Or neither.

The mind doesn’t keep a perfect diary; it keeps a creative writing notebook. It edits memories depending on mood, ego, and convenience. That’s why eyewitnesses can’t agree on the color of the getaway car. And that’s why your friend swears you promised to pay the bill that night, while you remember no such thing.

b) Emotional Filters

Ever noticed how rain looks romantic when you’re in love, but depressing when you’re heartbroken? Same rain. Different mind.

Emotions are like tinted sunglasses. Sadness puts on grey lenses, joy puts on golden ones, anger adds red. The world itself hasn’t changed; only your filter settings have. And the funniest part? You don’t realize you’re wearing glasses at all. You just assume, “This is reality.”

c) Cognitive Biases

The mind doesn’t just lie — it cheats. It looks for shortcuts.

• Confirmation bias: You think your neighbor is arrogant. The one time he forgets to greet you, your brain says, “See! Proof!” The 20 times he smiled at you are conveniently deleted.

  
  

• Negativity bias: Ten people praise your work, one criticizes it. Guess which one you think about at 2 AM?

  
  

• Optimism bias: You pack only half the clothes for a trip, thinking, “I’ll be fine.” Then you end up wearing the same T-shirt in every holiday photo.

  
  

Biases are the brain’s version of cheap magic tricks. They look convincing, but if you slow down, you’ll see the wires.

d) Survival Exaggerations

Imagine walking down a dark street and seeing a rope on the ground. Instantly, your heart screams: “Snake!” You jump, panic, maybe even scream louder than you’d like to admit. Two seconds later, you realize it’s just a rope.

That’s your survival brain. It’s designed to overreact, because missing one snake is costlier than panicking a hundred times at ropes. Useful for cavemen. Exhausting for us. That’s why your body reacts to a presentation in office as if you’re about to wrestle a tiger. Sweaty palms, racing heart, shaky voice — all because your brain loves exaggeration.

Your mind is not a CCTV camera capturing reality. It’s more like a stand-up comedian who takes ordinary events, adds a twist, and delivers it back to you with dramatic effect. Sometimes hilarious, sometimes heartbreaking, but never exactly true.

The trick is not to destroy the mirror. The trick is to know when it’s lying, laugh at it, and then look again.

Why the Mind Lies (Survival Logic)

If the brain had a motto, it would be: “Better wrong and alive than correct and dead.” Evolution built our mind for speed, not accuracy.

Imagine a caveman walking in the dark. He sees something curled on the ground. His brain has two options:

1. Think calmly, “Hmm, could be a rope, could be a snake. Let me investigate.”

2. Panic, scream, and jump five feet in the air.

   
   

Option two wastes energy. Option one could waste a life. Which one wins? You guessed it — the dramatic overreaction. That’s why even today, in the 21st century, you scream at lizards in the bathroom like they’re Jurassic Park villains.

Pareidolia: Faces in Clouds

Your brain hates randomness. That’s why you see a bunny in the clouds, Jesus on toast, or a face in the plug sockets staring at you. This isn’t stupidity — it’s survival. The brain evolved to spot faces quickly. If you mistake a cloud for a face, no problem. If you mistake a tiger’s face for a cloud, you become dinner.

Phantom Limb Pain

Soldiers who lost arms sometimes still feel pain in the missing limb. The brain refuses to update the map. It lies and says, “Don’t worry, the hand is still there!” This shows your mind isn’t showing you reality; it’s showing you a useful story, even if it’s nonsense.

Attention Blindness

Remember the “Invisible Gorilla” experiment? People were asked to count basketball passes, and most never saw the guy in a gorilla suit walk through the scene. That’s your brain again: when focused on survival tasks, it edits out everything else. Which explains why you miss the milk packet in the fridge while your spouse finds it in two seconds. (It’s not blindness. It’s selective stupidity.)

When Lies Help Us

Now here’s the twist: not all lies are bad. Some are the reason we’ve survived, laughed, and even healed.

Optimism Bias

If humans were 100% realistic, half of us would never get married, start a business, or go on a diet. Optimism bias tells us, “This time it will work!” That’s why every New Year, gyms make money. Without optimism, we’d all just sit on the couch, sigh, and say, “What’s the point?”

Placebo Effect

A sugar pill can reduce pain if your brain believes it’s medicine. That’s not cheating — that’s the brain’s magic show. Your mind literally turns lies into chemistry. Sometimes belief is stronger than biology.

Self-Narratives

When life gets tough, you tell yourself, “I’m strong, I’ll survive this.” Even if you’re crying in the bathroom five minutes later, that story keeps you standing. The brain knows the truth but feeds you a lie just strong enough to keep you moving.

Selective Forgetting

Imagine if you remembered every embarrassing thing you ever did — every wrong word, every awkward moment. You’d never leave your house. Forgetting is a survival feature. It’s the brain’s way of saying, “Relax, I deleted the cringe file.” Without this mercy, none of us would function.

The mind lies because it must. Sometimes to keep us alive, sometimes to keep us sane, sometimes just to keep us laughing at ourselves. The trick is knowing when to enjoy the lie, and when to fact-check it.

When Lies Hurt Us

Not every lie the mind tells is cute or useful. Some of them are like that friend who gives terrible advice with great confidence.

Anxiety – The Inventor of Threats

Anxiety is basically your brain working as a full-time horror movie director. You walk into a meeting and suddenly imagine the worst: “They’re all judging me, I’ll forget my words, maybe I’ll faint and make the evening news.” None of this has happened, but your brain has already sold you the tickets. Reality is calm. The mirror in your mind is playing Paranormal Activity 7.

Depression – When the Mirror Paints Everything Black

Depression doesn’t just distort reality, it takes a black marker and scribbles over everything. Food tastes dull, music feels empty, mornings look pointless. It’s not that life has lost all color — it’s that the mirror has turned off the lights. And the cruel part? You start believing that’s the real world.

Overthinking – The Restaurant Menu Crisis

You sit down at a restaurant. The waiter hands you the menu. Instantly, the mind turns this into a life-or-death exam. “Should I order the biryani? But what if the pasta is better? What if I regret it later? What if everyone else orders something lighter and I look greedy? What if the waiter judges me? What if the chef spits in my food because I took too long?”By the time you finally decide, you’re exhausted. And then, of course, you spend the whole meal staring at your friend’s plate thinking, “I should’ve ordered that instead. ”Reality: it’s just lunch. Mind’s lie: “This decision defines your destiny.”

Trauma – Memory Under Renovation

Trauma is when the brain doesn’t just lie — it becomes a bad editor. Some memories get suppressed, others exaggerated, some cut into pieces and rearranged like a puzzle that never quite fits. It’s survival, yes, but it also means you can’t always trust your own past.

Real-Life Applications

Despite all these distortions, the mind’s lies are not always villains. Sometimes, learning to play with them is what changes the game.

Sports Psychology – Fear or Excitement?

Athletes don’t eliminate fear. They rebrand it. A pounding heart before a big match? An anxious brain screams: “Danger! Run!” A trained brain reframes: “Energy! Let’s go!” Same physiology, different story. The lie becomes the fuel.

“It’s not about getting rid of butterflies in your stomach. It’s about teaching them to fly in formation.”

Relationships – The Battle of Intent

Couples don’t usually fight about facts. They fight about intentions. One person says, “You didn’t call.” The other replies, “I was busy.” Reality is just a missed call. The mirror in one mind repaints it as neglect, the other’s mirror repaints it as stress. Neither is lying on purpose. The mirrors are.

Work – Imposter Syndrome

You’ve got the job, the skills, the evidence. Yet your brain whispers: “You don’t deserve this. You just fooled them.” That’s imposter syndrome — the mental mirror Photoshopping your achievements to look smaller than they are. And ironically, the most capable people suffer from it most. Reality: you’re competent. Mirror: “Nah, you’re a fraud in a suit.”

The mind’s lies can break us or make us. Anxiety, depression, and overthinking show us the danger. But in sports, love, and work, the same distortions can be harnessed into strength. The trick is simple — don’t smash the mirror. Learn when to question it, when to laugh at it, and when to say, “Fine, lie to me if it helps me win.”

Books & Thinkers that Echo This

I’m not the first person to notice the mind lies. Many brilliant people have been politely shouting this truth for decades. The difference is — they wore suits and gave TED talks; I sip chai at tea stalls and write blogs.

Daniel Kahneman – Thinking, Fast and Slow

Kahneman split the brain into two systems: one fast and impulsive, the other slow and deliberate. The fast system is the gossiping auntie of your brain — quick to react, dramatic, not always reliable. The slow system is the retired professor — thoughtful, accurate, but often too late to stop you from eating that extra samosa.

“Nothing in life is as important as you think it is, while you are thinking about it.” – Kahneman

Chabris & Simons – The Invisible Gorilla

They made people count basketball passes, and most missed the guy in a gorilla suit walking through the scene. Moral? You don’t see reality; you see what your attention allows. Which explains why you can find faults in your partner instantly, but never the car keys lying right in front of you.

Bessel van der Kolk – The Body Keeps the Score

He showed how trauma doesn’t just scar the mind; it rewires the body. Your back pain, migraines, and insomnia might be your nervous system saying, “I still remember, even if you don’t.” Trauma edits your memory like a badly cut movie — jumpy, exaggerated, incomplete.

Daniel Gilbert – Stumbling on Happiness

Gilbert pointed out that we’re terrible at predicting what will make us happy. You dream about buying that big car, and two months later it feels like a slightly shinier parking headache. The mind lies not just about the past, but also about the future.

“The human being is the only animal that thinks about the future — and the only animal that consistently gets it wrong.” – Gilbert

How to Work with the Mirror

You can’t smash the mental mirror. But you can learn to wink at it when it lies.

Notice Distortions

Before reacting, ask: “Is this fact or my interpretation?” Example: Your friend yawns while you’re talking. Fact: they yawned. Interpretation: “I’m boring, I have no value, I should never speak again.” Don’t punish yourself for a yawn. Sometimes lungs need oxygen, not better jokes.

Cross-Check Reality

Talk to others. Reality check is the cheapest therapy. Half the time, what you think is rejection is just someone being stuck in traffic. One conversation can save you weeks of imaginary suffering.

Slow Thinking

Pause before reacting. When the waiter brings the wrong dish, don’t throw a tantrum immediately. Maybe it’s a chance to discover your new favorite food. Or maybe it’s just dal instead of sambar. Either way, five seconds of slow thinking beats five minutes of regret.

Mindfulness

Mindfulness is basically calling your brain out on its drama. Observe thoughts like you watch clouds: “There goes an angry thought… there goes an anxious one… oh look, a nostalgic one shaped like a balloon.” The trick is to see them as passing visitors, not permanent residents.

The mirror of the mind will always lie — sometimes kindly, sometimes cruelly. But if you can learn when to question it, when to laugh at it, and when to let it go… you don’t just survive life, you enjoy it.

“Don’t believe everything you think.” – Unknown wise soul

Closing Insight – Circle Back

When I first stood at that tea stall watching two men argue over ten rupees, I didn’t know that moment would eventually become this blog. But looking back now, it makes sense. My life has always been about noticing the little things that everyone else ignores — the tea glass stains, the missed calls, the silences between words — and realizing they aren’t little at all. They are the real teachers.

That’s how Mind Flow was born. Not from textbooks or certificates, but from living, failing, fasting, overthinking, laughing, and questioning every trick my own mind played on me. And what I discovered is this: you don’t need to fight the mirror. You just need to know it lies.

Life becomes lighter the moment you stop demanding perfect reflections. You begin to laugh when your brain turns a missed call into a Greek tragedy, or when it convinces you that a rope is a snake. You begin to pause before reacting, to ask yourself, “Is this reality or just my interpretation?” And slowly, you learn that serenity isn’t about controlling the mind — it’s about dancing with its distortions.

So here’s my takeaway for you: Don’t waste your life trying to fix the mirror. Learn to smile at it. Smile at the lies, the exaggerations, the biases, the silly dramas. Smile because the very same mirror that scares you is also the one that makes you dream, love, hope, and survive.

And if you ever catch yourself spiraling in your own mind’s funhouse, remember this — the reflection isn’t the enemy, it’s just a storyteller. And you always have the choice to laugh at the story and keep walking.

“Don’t believe everything you think — but do believe that you are bigger than your thoughts.”