High Resolution Reality
“Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them—that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward however they like.” —Lao Tzu
“Life is 10% what happens to us and 90% how we react to it.” – Charles R. Swindoll
One of the most common failures of our humanity is the denial of reality or ignoring its irrefutable effects. Denial or avoidance is an attitude or a mental strategy we erect against life’s realities. Jack Welch said it bluntly, “Face reality as it is, not as it was or as you wish it to be.” Beyond the obvious, (accepting the laws of gravity, the inevitabilities of sickness, aging & the weather) a healthy mental attitude towards reality has distinct advantages.
For most of us much of what we believe about reality has been handed down to us by family, culture and education. In a sense our human reality is a constructed reality. We are all unique and assemble our sense of reality even our place in its unfolding largely by what we have been taught and what we have accepted as Truth. Taking responsibility for your mental experience of reality liberates you to assert your place in the world.
Though seemingly counterintuitive it is healthy to admit that our mentally constructed reality can be very flawed or even distorted. A hundred or more years of psychological investigation into the human psyche has revealed that many of us suffer and struggle in the depths of our being because we insist that our perception of reality is unquestionably correct. Some spend a life at war with their world and even within their own being protecting their faulty or even twisted vision of reality. For example, what we commonly identify as narcissism are those among us who believe that the world exists to serve their needs.
On the other side of the coin are those who make the mistake of accepting someone else’s vision of reality as gospel. This is especially relevant in close relationships. Les Brown insightfully states, “Don’t let someone else’s opinion of you become your reality.” In recent history many souls have thrown their lives into the abyss of religious, political extremism, becoming consumed by an ideological fad. Upon close examination it will almost certainly become clear that such visions of reality sooner or later fail the litmus test and reveal their rational weakness.
A big step towards a higher resolution experience of is a willingness to question and change what we believe about reality.