Reality Based Thinking

Reality TV seems to be by far the hottest thing on the tube right now. It amazes me that people watch so much reality TV, yet they don’t face reality in their own lives. You see, in “reality” there are two ways of viewing life that ultimately dictate how you choose to live. They are two dichotomous world perspectives. These two worlds are – the world of “Should Be” and the world of “As Is.” The sooner you get out of the world of “Should Be” and enter the world of “As Is”, the faster you will succeed in life.

There is a very common school of thought that suggests that a perfect balance of fairness and equality should exist amongst all people - there “should be” no racism, no sexism, no classism, no poor, no exceedingly rich, no this, no that, and SOMEBODY should Change the way things are so everyone has a chance to be equal because that would be fair. In a perfect world, all of that might be true, but… that is not REALITY.

The world of “As Is” puts the truth straight in your face and forces you to deal with it as it is. Once you deal with the world of "As Is", you make no more excuses for not being successful no matter what you are starting with or what obstacles are presented to you. You become solution oriented and no longer use HOPE as a strategy (Hoping things will change and be equal is a poor strategy. You accept the real world and navigate your way through the tough challenges of life. You will succeed or you won’t and no one will care except you… that’s the world of As Is.

The world of "As Is" says that even though the playing field is not level and there are many obstacles in front of me, I have the power to overcome them or to succumb to them, but either way it’s MY CHOICE.

Below are two examples to dramatically illustrate how crazy it is when you are stuck in the world of "should be" and how simple life can be when you enter the world of "as is."

Person #1 walks into a room with the intent to come out on the other side but soon realizes that there is no door to exit. He says to himself, “hmmm! There should be a door here,” and proceeds to walk into the wall. He backs up and gets angry and says again, “there should be a door here.” He continues bumping into the wall over and over until he finally gives up hope and sits down and progresses no further thinking to himself that life is not fair because there should be a door here.

Person #2 walks into the same room with the intention of coming out on the other side and also sees that there is no exit straight through. The thought does cross her mind that there should be a door there, but she does not hesitate or dwell on that thought. She simply walks back out the door having learned a valuable lesson, and then walks through the adjoining hallway that she discovered being solution oriented and passes by that room on to her desired destination.

Which world are you living in?