Realism is much touted in American life, personal and political. Parents are socially validated for mocking their young adult children’s “unrealistic” college majors and life choices. Candidates for office are rewarded with big donor cash for mocking anyone who suggests that we can experience major change. “I live in the real world,” has become a favorite catchphrase in this election.As the sovereign people of this nation (which means in theory, we’re the ones in charge) I have long maintained that its not up to us to make the tough choices, its up to us to make the choices tough. This means we ask for what we really want (like affordable high quality healthcare coverage for every person) rather than what we think we can “realistically” get (slightly more than what we have with some increased choice).
The same goes for other aspects of life. So often when people are looking for a job, a partner or a new place to live, their starting point is to be “realistic.” They are coached by conventional wisdom to look at what seems to be out there, determine what it costs or asks of applicants, and then winnow down their expectations to what appears to be possible. In other words they are advised to start low and move lower.
As a student of quantum physics, psychology and the effect of consciousness on perception, I can tell you that what we call “reality” is actually just a reflection of our collective beliefs. If we accept the current apparent conditions (poverty, war, racism, dead end jobs, expensive health care and education, “no good men”) as determinative of what is possible, everything gets worse from here.
There is an alternative. I love watching people take a chance on creating their Reality from within and then proceed (as visionary coach Mary Morrissey puts it) “from” that vision, rather than “to” it. How would they love to feel in a job, in a relationship, in a home? Most people will say things like “free, joyful, loving, creative and playful.” When they embroider their vision of their life anchoring it in the feeling of it, something shifts in their perception. Now, instead of being a victim of “reality,” they are creating their Reality. I have watched people create in this way amazing careers, relationships, homes and experiences from the inside out.
I like to hang out with and vote for people who are not just accepting the parameters of the “possible” but changing them (and I bet you do too). The people that we like to read about in magazines see something that is “impossible” and make it happen anyway.
The people we venerate and idolize in the world history are always the visionaries: Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., George Washington, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, these are all people who led mass movements to achieve “the impossible.” If any of these people “lived in the real world” then apartheid, segregation, British colonial rule, and the Great Depression might still be “reality.”
