Jack is 47 years old. Even at 47 years old, he has never had a real career. He is still working temp jobs. Because of this, he is always struggling financially and has never been able to buy his own house. Instead, every year he has to go through the process of finding a new apartment to rent. And because the prices keep going up, but his pay checks don’t, his lifestyle keeps going down and down. And when it comes to relationships, it seems like every woman who he commits to, eventually wants a better lifestyle. More than he can currently give them. But they feel like if they want to improve their life, it will be on their shoulders alone to do so and to drag Jack along, since he has no motivation and thus, provide that lifestyle improvement for Jack as well. Because of this, his relationships always devolve into him feeling like he is not good enough.

Jack is not fighting against this reality. He has accepted it. But having accepted it, Jack has slipped into powerless about it. Jack has decided that he can’t change it. Because he has decided that this is the reality and he can’t change it, he has decided that life sucks and that it is just going to keep sucking. He doesn’t want to put any effort into trying to make it different because he can’t face the idea that he might do that and nothing will change, enhancing his pain. So, telling himself that he can’t do anything to change it, prevents him from putting what little energy he has towards something and it creating no results. But the problem with this is that he has slipped into apathy. By the way if you want to understand more about apathy, you can watch my video titled: How To Cure Apathy.

Jack is passive to his own life. He does the bare minimum to get by and he spends most of his time escaping into video games and amateur league sports. He does absolutely nothing to try to change the reality that he is struggling financially and has no career and cannot offer a woman anything other than his company. He flips the polarity dynamic on every woman who he gets into a relationship with and makes her carry and provide for him, while he does nothing except show up to his temp jobs, play video games and sports. He has accepted the negative reality of where he is. He has added the meaning “I’m screwed then and can’t do anything to change it”. And he has stopped trying to bring about what he wants.

Blaine is 47 years old. Because he went into medical debt, he is currently working temp jobs. Because of this, he is struggling financially and he is living in his parent’s basement. The woman he is with has a stable career, but is always too stressed to be happy and is carrying more weight that he is financially. Because of this, she often says she feels like she is his mother rather than his woman. She is deeply unhappy about their life together. On a subconscious level, Blaine does not feel like he can handle facing any of this reality. It would make him feel so powerless, he might become like Jack. So, Blaine refuses to see, acknowledge or accept the painful reality of his life. Instead, he focuses only on positives. He reframes anything bad or negative that happens. And he acts according to the reality that he wants to see, rather than the reality that is. He wants the reality to be that he is not working at temp jobs because he knows he’s better than that. But he acts like this IS the reality and so, he tells himself and other people that he is a crypto currency trader by profession and despite making almost no money by trading, often turns down temp jobs he is offered.

He wants the reality to be that he can afford anything, so he charges things to his credit card and lives above his means. He wants the reality to be that he has his own apartment, so he finds one and lies about his income to get it. Of course, by doing all of this, he increases his debt. He wants the reality to be that he and his girlfriend are in a wonderful relationship. So, when she complains about their life together, he decides that she has just had a hard day at work and he settles her down by rubbing her feet. Because this usually puts her in a better mood, he does not think their relationship is in trouble and is absolutely shocked when one day, she breaks up with him and moves all of her stuff out.

Blaine will not see or accept any reality that causes him to feel bad about himself or his life. And so, he makes decisions and takes actions according to what he wants to see and wants to be real, as if it is already the case. When he does this, he is so out of reality and is living in such a fantasy world that only he occupies, that not only does he seem mentally ill sometimes, he also keeps hurting himself and other people. He makes the wrong choices and does the wrong things because he is not responding to what is real.

What you saw showcased in these two examples is the human tendency to go one of two ways when it comes to unwanted elements of reality. When it comes to the topic of reality, people make the mistake of either:

1. Accepting an unwanted reality and then sinking into powerlessness about it, so as to let go of what they want to be the reality instead. And so as to do nothing to change it into something better. 
2. Refusing to see the unwanted reality and instead, acting according to the reality they want to have be true. 

Both of these pendulum swing strategies get people into big, big trouble. The first strategy causes a person to give up on what is wanted and decide that life is pain and slip into the illusion of powerlessness. By doing this, you are no longer able to see what CAN be done. For example, the time that Jack puts into video games could be spent on learning a skill that might make him more money or on looking for and applying to different jobs. It is obvious to everyone else in Jack’s life that he is absolutely not powerless to making good money. They are constantly frustrated by his passive, apathetic behavior. 

By using this strategy, you are in fact out of reality because you are not seeing the wanted or beneficial elements of reality that you could draw on and use in order to bring about a change. And you are not in reality relative to what you CAN do to create whatever it is that you are wanting. You are no longer an active participant in personal expansion. Expansion must then happen to you and despite you, which is a dangerous invitation. If you want to learn more about why not actively participating in expansion is a dangerous invitation, watch my video titled: Why it’s Dangerous to Stay in Your Comfort Zone. 

The second strategy causes a person to slip into a narcissistic bubble reality. When a person is in their own reality, acting as if what they want to have be true is true in the here and now, they are alone and they make the other people in their life alone too because of it. This creates parallel perceptual realities, which destroys relationships. On top of this, it is to slip into not only denial, but also a form of mental illness. A person starts to behave in a scary way because they don’t perceive anything negative, such as dangers or risks or reality. It’s guaranteed that with this strategy, the person has no actual power because when they make decisions or take actions it is not a decision or action exacted upon what is real and so it will not have the desired effect. 

Unfortunately, many modern spiritual beliefs have contributed greatly to this negative coping mechanism. Especially amongst those spiritual communities that are centered around the Law of Attraction. There is an idea floating around that to deny or not acknowledge the unwanted, so as to merely focus on what you want to have be true (as if it already is true) is how to manifest. This is not true. This is the way to become mentally ill and slip into a narcissistic parallel perceptual reality. Tools that help you manifest what you want to have be real (including visualizing things as if you already have them) must come with the willingness to also see reality and to see what is. To live an empowered life and to be able to create things in reality, you must be able to acknowledge what is (including the unwanted elements of what is) and also practice focusing on and taking action towards what you want instead.

Imagine someone came into a hospital and the reality was that they were internally bleeding, but you didn’t want that to be true, you wanted the reality to be that they are well. Now imagine that because of this, you acted as if they are well. You told yourself that their dizziness was because they drove to the hospital and just got motion sick. You told yourself that their swollen, tight abdomen was because they had gas. And you gaslit the crap out of them by saying that they are ok, sending them home with a Lolli Pop and a smile on your face. It’s easy to see that you are not mentally well. Not only that, because you were not in reality, you could do nothing to change the reality and thus were making yourself unnecessarily powerless. And not only that, you made the wrong decisions and did the wrong things and there were huge consequences for it.

If you use the strategy of pretending that what you want to have be real is real, you will make yourself unnecessarily powerless, you will make the wrong choices and take the wrong actions and there will be serious consequences to you and everyone around you. If you find yourself slipping into this second strategy, you would benefit by watching two of my videos. The first titled: Reality. And the second titled: The Most Dangerous Parallel Reality.

Both of these strategies find their roots in our early life experience. When we are young, and when we experience unwanted things, it is necessary to learn that we can do something about them, so as to have a better experience. When we see our parents doing something to actively change unwanted elements of their own lives as well as experience them acting as allies regarding changing the things that are causing us pain, we learn that reality does not imply that we are powerless to unwanted things. We learn a sense of empowerment about the things we don’t like in our life. And this empowerment gives us bravery to look at the unwanted aspects of reality and do something proactive to change them. 

When we don’t have these early experiences, we often learn that no one can do anything about the unwanted elements of reality. We have a sense of powerlessness relative to things we don’t like about our life. So, we decide to cope with this sense of powerlessness in whichever way is less painful to us specifically… We either cope with this by accepting unwanted realities and succumbing to a false sense of powerlessness about them so as to focus on something other than creating improvement. Or we cope with it by refusing to see and accept unwanted realities and living in a dangerous fantasy as if what we want to have be the reality, is already the reality. 

In this life, the ticket to an empowered life is to see and accept the reality… what is. This includes both the wanted and enjoyable elements of reality and the unwanted and painful elements of reality. One does not negate the other. And from there, to actively participate in the process of expansion by capitalizing on the wanted and enjoyable aspects, while proactively changing the unwanted elements into what we want instead. We are meant to see the reality (what is) and to actively bring about what we want to have be the reality (what we want). This causes not only expansion for ourselves, but also the people around us, human society, the world and the universe at large. 

This process of continuously sorting through the contrast of this time space reality so as to transform the unwanted into what is wanted, means that we are constantly in the process of appreciating what is, while also continuing to create improvement. We let go of the idea that the goal is to get to a place in life where there is an ended-ness; because everything is perfect and there is nothing more to improve upon. We enjoy this game of exploration and change around consistent improvement. We begin living with the attitude of the better it gets, the better it can get.