Reality

Recently I revisited two posts I published in May 2009 on “reality” (you can find those below this post).

Looking at reality today, it seems that it is a concept that is perhaps more fluid than it was then — and as it is changing, it seems to begin to mean different things to different people…

From a spiritual perspective it is said that we are creating our own reality, mostly through the choices we make in life. Other things that probably are in play are our wishes and desires, our overall outlook on life, and our attitude about (our) life in general.

So, if we embark on the adventure that is our life — say for this week — with a positive attitude, with wishes and desires that are truly important to us, and we make our choices accordingly… Chances are that our reality will bring us closer to make our lives even better in whichever way we define our lives to be “good”, or “better”.

Yet the moment we are starting to keep track of the things that are actually happening in the world around us, the bubble of our personal reality — that we are carefully building through our choices, attitudes, wishes and desires — may burst!

In other words, what we see happening in the world around us — or even on a global scale — seems to be a far cry from what we wish our personal reality to be, and it seems easy to “get sucked into the drama of the rest of the world”…

So, which one is the true reality? 

Does this mean that our personal reality is somewhat of a phantasy world, and should we “get with it” and be a full participant in the reality of the world around us?

Or is there value in maintaining our personal reality? Could it be that the example of how we are creating our own, personal reality can become a tool others can use also to make their lives easier and more fulfilling?

And if that is so, should we push the point, or rather continue to set the example?

They are all interesting questions, giving raise to interesting perspectives. It gives me pause to think about my personal reality. My personal qualification of how good — or perhaps not so good — my life is, and what I can do about it to make it even better…

Granted… It is not necessarily an easy path. It is a path that requires honesty, integrity, and taking responsibility for our words and actions — sometimes because something didn’t work out well, yet more often by giving ourselves a pat on the back, acknowledging that we did a great job…

In doing so, we are bringing more and more things that are happening in our lives back under our control — after all, they came into our lives through our own choices — and we are truly starting to live our own lives…

What does your reality look like?