What keeps a person alive: Lies, dreams, or truth?

If you were to ask, what truly keeps a person alive? The answer doesn’t lie solely in truth, nor is it found entirely in dreams. Perhaps it’s hidden somewhere within a lie or a shimmer of illusion. Because if a person lived only by truth, they would break. If they lived only in dreams, they would drift. And if they clung only to lies, they would wither. Maybe what truly sustains us is the delicate balance between these three. Each one holds a piece of life, a sliver of escape, a taste of comfort.

Truth is heavy. It’s hard. It cuts. Like waking up to a phone call you didn’t want to answer, like a sudden silence after an argument, like the rawness of loneliness in a crowded room. Truth does not whisper; it confronts. Like pain, it returns uninvited and often stays longer than it should. And yet, it teaches us the most. It shapes us, sculpts our character with each fall. But it also wears us down. Slowly. Quietly. And sometimes, it’s that very weight of truth that breaks us.

Dreams, on the other hand, are something else entirely. They are the keys to a parallel world. To believe in something that hasn’t happened yet… to wait for someone you haven’t met… to imagine a happiness you’ve never tasted. People walk through storms because they dream of sunlight. They endure the ordinary because they carry within them the extraordinary. A poem yet to be written, a gaze yet to be caught, a life yet to be lived. Dreams are the fuel of the soul. They revive us when reality bruises too hard. That’s why people who dream never fully surrender.

And then there are lies, especially the soft, pink ones. The bridge between truth and dreams. You know they’re not real, but you choose to believe them anyway. “He still loves you.” “Everything will be okay; just hold on.” “You did your best.” These phrases come sometimes from a friend, sometimes from your own trembling voice, sometimes from the hollow smile of a stranger. And yes, deep down, you know they may not be true. But in that moment, belief is more vital than truth. Not in the lie itself, but in the warmth it gives.

Perhaps no single thing keeps a person alive. We are, after all, creatures of contradiction. We want to forget yet cling to memories. We long to leave, yet hope someone stops us. We crave truth but often beg for illusion. Life, then, is not a single mirror; it is a mirror shattered into three. One shard reflects the truth. Another, our dreams. The third shows only what we wish to see. And each morning, we wake not knowing which reflection to believe.

Some mornings, we can bear the truth. We rise, we look into our own eyes and admit: this isn’t the life we wanted. But we keep going. Some mornings, we need dreams. We close the curtains, shut the world out, and imagine waking up somewhere else, in another life, with another heart beating beside ours. And then there are mornings where only lies can hold us together. Because sometimes, survival begins with pretending.

In the end, it’s not truth alone, or dreams alone, or lies alone that keep us breathing. It’s the mixture. The rhythm between them. Truth points the way. Dreams light the path. Lies lend us strength to take the next few steps. Sometimes one dominates, sometimes another. But always, we move forward.

What keeps a person alive is the wish to hear one more laugh. To write one more letter. To forgive, or be forgiven. To warm your chest with the weight of a sleeping child. Or to find yourself in the eyes of a stranger. Living isn’t just breathing. Living is breaking and rebuilding again. With truth, with dreams, with lies, but most of all, with hope.

With Love and Respect,

Burak Anaturk.

Burak Anaturk is a professional civil engineer. He focuses on sharing lessons from his life experiences, exploring diverse perspectives, and discussing personal development topics.
Email:[email protected]