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1-Page Summary of The Fifth Agreement
Overview
It is important to live freely and let go of self-limiting habits. If you agree, you can recover the freedom to explore and create without judgement.
Here are five key points to regain your normal human nature.
In addition to learning how you can use the power of should, you’ll learn why opinions are only relative truths and why assumptions can lead to unnecessary drama.
Big Idea #1: We lose our natural human tendencies thanks to the process of domestication and the symbology we’re taught.
Our minds are influenced by society and the people around us. Our parents teach us what they’ve learned, and we become domesticated when we take on those beliefs.
Before we were domesticated, we lived in a natural state. We explored and ate without thinking about it or judging ourselves for doing so.
When we are toddlers, we play without worrying about being too fat or using the wrong colors. We do things because they make us happy.
As we grow up, we’re taught symbols that are used to judge and punish ourselves.
We do need symbols, but they’re just a way to express ourselves. Words are graphical symbols that we give certain meanings in order to communicate through sound and writing.
However, the symbols we’re exposed to and taught when growing up are loaded with cultural values. We also learn how we should be in accordance with those values. Therefore, people use abstract notions of wrong and right, fat and skinny, beautiful and ugly to gauge these norms.
For example, we might learn that in order to be a good Christian, we have to go to church every Sunday. Or we might learn that in order to be happy, we need to be skinny and beautiful. But if you’re not skinny or beautiful or going to church on Sundays, then you feel like you’re doing something wrong and are punished by your own thoughts. Over time, this leads us away from our natural tendencies towards behaving as normal human beings do—the way little kids behave without being self-conscious about anything they do.
Big Idea #2: Our knowledge and truth become relative through symbology.
As we grow up, we learn to communicate with one another by agreeing on certain symbols. This is the case for language. However, this agreement doesn’t mean that there’s an absolute truth behind those symbols. For example, a tree is true in itself; it exists regardless of whether or not anyone agrees upon its existence through a symbol such as “tree.” The word “tree” would have no meaning if it was used in a different context without any understanding of what the word means.
If we don’t agree on a particular symbol, then there is no meaning to it. Symbols are relative and have no real meaning. Therefore, they are only meaningful in context.
Furthermore, since our knowledge is based on shared symbols, it’s relative. We see the world through these symbols and form beliefs about what we perceive.
Furthermore, the various religions, philosophies and ways of thinking are created through agreements between people. For instance, some areas believe in one almighty god while others have multiple gods.
Everything we know is a shared symbology. Since this symbology isn’t the same for everyone, it can only be a relative truth.
Since most of what we know about ourselves is relative, how do you really know who you are? You can find out by following the five agreements.
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Big Idea #3: The first agreement: be impeccable in your use of words.
Words are powerful. They can be used to create or destroy. When you use words that criticize yourself, then you’re using words against yourself, and your self-esteem suffers as a result.
