Most people have expectations about how things will go, how the world is, what the rules of the road are, and what is supposed to happen in most situations. Let’s call these expectations your concepts or ideals. But most often, reality turns out to be different. For some people, they experience a constant battle between their ideals and reality. You can hear them complain about how things are.
What is the basis for their complaints? Let’s think about this structurally. That means, looking at these two elements within the structure – ideal/reality – and how they are connected. The stronger the ideal is held, the more the frustration when reality contradicts it. The less the insistence of the ideal, the more flexible one can be.
Here is a fact. Your ability to create what you want includes the ability to be fluent in reality. The creative process happens in reality. One way to define the creative process is the ability to bring what you want to create into reality. If you are not able to create the results you want in reality, you haven’t actually created it.
A skill to develop, no matter what you thought reality should have been, is to understand reality as it is. What does it matter what preconceived ideas you had, reality shows up as it actually is: real.
Once you are fluent in reality, if you have a vision of what you want to create, you are in a better position to create it. This is pure structural tension. A clear idea of what you want to create along with a clear understanding of the current reality as it is in relationship to your vision.
Notice when you find yourself complaining about how things aren’t the ways they should be. That is an indication of your ideal in conflict with how it really is. Develop a preference for seeing reality accurately, no matter what you happen to expect. As I have said, reality is an acquired taste. A taste that is good to acquire.
