Reality vs You
It’s mid-January so, it’s that time of the month when many people realize that their new year resolutions weren’t so realistic after all.
If you’re in this boat, congratulations, you’re human.
More importantly, I’m glad you can at least face reality and admit the depth of the challenge to yourself. But the real challenge now is to figure out what path you want to take going forward.
Do you want to try to stick it out, abide by the motivational rhetorics, and somehow make it work? Or do you want to reassess your capacity, simplify those goals and resolutions and take it one day at a time?
There is no wrong answer.
Your answer is the correct answer—at least for now and until you have to face reality again.
I’ve been off work, of several kinds, for the past few weeks and have plans to resume slowly next week. I’m glad I didn’t have to kick off my year by jumping straight back into the thick of things.
I’m grateful to have had a slow start to my year because it’s helped me better understand what I’m capable of doing with my time and resources right now. It’s helped me face reality, so when I resume work, I can do so without setting unrealistic expectations.
A couple of days ago, while my wife and I drove through the harbor city, that is Nanaimo, unsuccessfully searching for Nanaimo bars—as all the local bakeries decided to close early that day—I saw a little bumper sticker on a car in front of ours, that read, ‘reality always wins.’
I’ve since wondered if that statement is true, in and of itself. Maybe it is. But I believe reality doesn’t always win.
Reality only wins when we fail to make the necessary adjustments to our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors so that we can catch up with reality. If we did, it would be a draw—most times. In some rare cases, if we have faith, the miraculous can happen, and we could beat reality to the chase.
The bottom line is we have a choice. We can either let reality win, catch up to it or let faith lead the way. The next time you think about your resolutions, consider these choices and choose a path.
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