When we don't like reality, we have more possibilities. One of these is to change it, another is to accept it. In some cases, circumstances take on characteristics that leave us only the second option.
Last update: Augusts 25, 2020
When we have to deal with a reality that we do not like, we can take different positions. We can complain about our bad luck, roll up our sleeves and try to change it or accept it and work so that it doesn't become the center of our attention. We can include it in our speeches or we can exclude it, or accept it among our thoughts or throw any possible unpleasant reference into our “mental basket”. In one way or another, however, there are realities that we must accept.
In other words, they are events or situations that exist and will always exist. So that they do not affect us or affect our well-being, we have no choice but to learn to live with them, just as we do with some obsessions of the people around us, which we must learn to endure.
What are the realities that we have to accept but don't like?
We are not perfect
We can adopt the somewhat romantic attitude of considering the mistake a fortune. Without it we could never learn, improve ourselves, experience the wonderful feeling of growing up. We did poorly or poorly yesterday, but today we will do better.
But ... how many forgetfulnesses have made us angry? How many glasses have we broken for our clumsiness? We did not calculate well the distance with the car behind and we hit it. We forgot the appointment with the doctor and didn't go.
For how much anger you arouse in us or for how much attention we will pay, we will continue to make stupid mistakes, those that do not teach much. It is a reality that we must accept.
Expectations
Events rarely arrange to exactly follow the plans we have in mind. We should have a truck instead of a suitcase to have a ready answer to all the foreseen unexpected events. if we wanted to enumerate them, in the list we would find the entry "others".
But is it worth it? Taking a position that is too cautious or restrained to avoid the unexpected is an excessive demand. It means holding back when we are dynamic or changing. On the other hand, we cannot get rid of expectations, just as we cannot get rid of first impressions and prejudices or the halo effect.
What we expect affects the elements of the psychological game, some of which are very important, such as self-efficacy or the control of our attention by the central executive.
Working with perception, not reality
A statue is not ugly. A person is not honest or a liar. It can behave often like that, but that doesn't mean it always does or not choosing behavior based on context. We can all actually lie, but that doesn't mean we're as interested or fake as a three euro coin.
In a map, two points are more or less distant depending on the scale or zoom we apply. We can make Rome and Venice very close or very far away.
The dialogue allows you to adopt the same unit of measurement and assign an absolute value, without making judgments. However, transferring this system of measurement to the psychological world has its difficulties. Imagine that Venice and Rome are constantly moving on the map.
What would we use as a reference point? Probably what we see at that moment on the screen. Because? Because it is comfortable to work from our point of view and taking into account only the information that comes from our senses at any given moment. In other words, we tend to work with photos when what we want is to work with a video and more with a camera that can rotate 360 ​​degrees. Unfortunately, however, it is not possible and it is another reality that we must accept.
Memory lapses, another reality that we must accept
You have it on the tip of your tongue. The word you want to reach is like an island: you know where it is, but you can't find the path to access it and lie down on its beach. Its meaning, the last time you used it, the letter with which it begins or ends.
That face is not new, it used to go to college with you. But what is it called? She sat next to Claudio. Another reality that we are forced to accept concerns the somewhat anarchic functioning of our memory.
In this article we have listed only a few uncomfortable realities that we cannot help but accept and that can cause a lot of frustration. And you, what would you include on this list and why?
