Learning to work with reality, rather than against it, is harder than it sounds.
For example, when my dad died, I watched him wither away from a terminal illness over a period of months.
I attended his funeral, comforted family members and visited his gravesite.
Yet the reality of the situation did not hit me until several weeks later.
When it did, I realized for the first time that I had been rationalizing that it was all a big misunderstanding that we would one day laugh at when it was resolved.
The fact that he was really gone was more than I was willing to accept.
It’s part of human nature to deny, reject or avoid realities that are uncomfortable or that challenge our narrative of the world.
Dan Ellsworth puts it like this:
“A refusal to live in reality leads to observable states of being: agitation, restlessness, panic, daydreaming, rumination, emotional volatility, and neurosis. Acceptance of reality leads to poise, patience, flexibility, resilience, and strength.”
The great challenge, for most of us, is learning to adapt to the way things are rather than the way we wish things were.
Even if we believe that we are objective observers, we each carry with us certain cognitive and emotional biases that cause us to deny reality.
Being realistic about our biases helps us develop the maturity to deal with everything that remains when we wish it were otherwise.
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