I Reject Your Reality
And Substitute My Own
~ Adam Savage, Mythbusters
We all know what reality is, don't we? The ground is under our feet. The sky is above out heads. As humans, we breathe air and not water. We all understand these realities and we all know these realities won't change no matter what. However, there is another set of realities, the set that lives in our minds and hearts, our belief system. These are my realities. I cannot speak Greek. I am fat. I will always be fat. I can't seem to stay in business. I don't know how to play the guitar. I'm good at speaking my mind, but not good at convincing people to buy from me. We tend to treat these realities the same as the first realities I mentioned, unalterable.
As children, from the time we're born, our parents taught us that there are rules in life, and that those rules don't change. We are taught right from wrong and we are expected to live by those rules until we die. There is nothing wrong with parents teaching life rules to their children. As a matter of fact, I personally believe this is necessary. Every way of life requires rules. Rules are what makes any system work. Also, children need structure. Structure provides a framework that teaches children how to make a system work. However as we grow older, and become adults, we often find that our personal needs do not fit into the framework that our parents, or society in general, created. We find that our needs, or the needs of other people around us, get stunted from the framework and structure provided. From that, our growth, spiritually, professionally, emotionally and even in other ways, becomes stunted. Societies often create their rules as "one size fits all", and unfortunately, this often creates huge problems, and sometimes even death, for those who don't or cannot fit into that framework.
Over the past 10 years, I have tried several times to start a business. I have had many ideas for business to start. My first attempt was a typing service. That didn't get very far. My next attempt was to market myself as a temporary office worker - without going through an agency. I only managed to get only one client, and that only lasted about 3 days. Then I saw an advertisement for a company that sells wholesale to entrepreneurs, who then sell the products any way they choose, and the wholesale company advertised that they would help the entrepreneurs to get their businesses going and become successful. I paid a lot of money to do that, and once again, I didn't get very far. I then had an idea for custom designing wedding invitations and other wedding related printed papers. I made the website and an entire line of products. That effort lasted about 5 years. Eventually that closed down too. Then I tried selling fake fur blankets on Ebay. That lasted about a month.
The truth about these businesses failing is a reality. None of these attempts have netted me a profit. I didn't even break even with what I spent on them. On one hand I could say that I failed. But, looking back, even with all the failures, each attempt taught me something, about myself, about running a business, and also each attempt failed a little less miserably than the attempt before. I also learned something else; that failure is just a way of looking at something. Failure is a perception. True, I could perceive myself as a failure, but I could also see myself has having successfully learned what not to do the next time. I learned that little tidbit from Gene Simmons, of KISS.
Reality is a perception. And perceptions can change.
Every person has a laundry list of things they can't do. And it's true, they can't do those things. But is has occurred to me that for every change that has ever been made, in an individual's life, or in a society, there was someone who decided that they weren't going to settle for that answer and decided to do it anyways. They decided that they could do it, even if they couldn't, and found a way to do it. Sure, they might not succeed in their own lifetime, but someone else picks up the challenge later and builds on the foundation laid by the first person, expands on the knowledge gained by the first person's efforts. I realize that most people don't want to try something that won't benefit them in their own lifetime. But there are many instances where millions have benefited because of the past missteps or failures of those who tried earlier.
Think of it. Benjamin Franklin created the postal system. Sure, they rode horses from town to town, and they probably weren't very efficient, but without somebody starting it, our postal system would not exist today. Benjamin Franklin also created the concept of having a fire department. Sure, they put out fires by carrying buckets of water, but that concept was refined and changed over the years. What would life be like today if nobody had created that system? Nobody has found a way to prevent earthquakes, and most people would say there's nothing you can do to stop people from dieing from earthquake related accidents. However, architects have found ways to create more durable structures. They only did that because they decided that accepting death as an inescapable reality was unacceptable. Many more people died before heart transplants, and liver transplants, and skin grafts were dreamed up than die now.
Besides, there's no law that says you can't succeed in this lifetime, unless you write that law yourself, in your own mind.
For all these things, somebody had to decide 'Yes. It can be done." instead of living with the reality of 'No. It's just not possible."
As human beings, we are all tied into a set of rules based on the realities in our minds. We see these realities as unchangeable because we perceive the rules as unchangeable. But even though we all need to live by rules, the truth is, there is no reason why the rules can't change. If you change the rules, the reality changes. Sometimes, it requires seeing a problem or a situation from a different perspective.
People fear what they don't understand. Fear turns into anger; anger that we don't understand why things don't go our way, anger that things don't go our way, anger that others don't agree with us and anger that we can't change their minds. We tend to not like change that goes in another person's favor. We don't tend to like diversity.
We tend to see others who are different as wrong, and sometimes as the enemy. That is our reality. That is written in our minds as the rule. That rule can change, but only if you're willing to change that rule in your mind.
You can change any reality in your mind. It starts with embracing, enthusiastically, that which is different, and accepting seeing things from a different perspective. It's a matter of attitude. Sometimes, it has to start with throwing away everything you've ever believed. When you throw away the things that limit you, you're world expands exponentially. Your attitude changes exponentially.
We can continue to see people in diametrically opposite countries and religions as the enemy, or we can choose to see them as having a different but equally valuable viewpoint. We can learn from that viewpoint, and gain a new understanding of them, our world and ourselves.
We can continue to see God, or whatever higher power you choose to believe in, as the only true gospel, or we can choose to see religion, and God, through the eyes of those who see it differently, and learn what they know. Life changes when you change your religious views. And what you can successfully do with your life changes as well. It also tends to expand your heart's capacity.
We can choose to see our current situations not as permanent reality, but as only temporary setbacks. We all have setbacks, but only those who don't change their perspective get caught in that becoming their permanent reality.
In 1935 the then current President Franklin Roosevelt signed into law the existence of Social Security. In 1965 the then current President Lyndon Johnson signed into law the Social Security Act, which expanded Social Security to include Medicare and Medicaid. These programs were instituted to help cover the medical expenses of the most vulnerable and medically, physically weakest members of society: the elderly, handicapped and poor. Since then there have been additional programs enacted to cover more groups of especially vulnerable people including newborn babies, pregnant women, young children and children who for one reason or another, are at especially high risk due to various factors such as absentee fathers, working mothers, lack of education, inaccessibility of education, parental unemployment, etc.
At the same time, the government has been expanding by leaps and bounds, and so has their spending. I am not, by any means, saying that their spending increases are because of, or limited to the programs that have been instituted on behalf of the weakest members of society. No. Their spending goes WAY beyond that. Washington D.C., and capitals in every state, government offices nationwide at every level of government, spend money like there's no tomorrow, and on the goofiest and most foolhardy things that exist.
Every year, congress votes itself a pay raise. This is not limited to congress. Every government leader does this. Congress is the only ones that do this every year though. And the public pays.
For the past decade or more, the American government has been giving money to large corporations to bail them out of financial crises. Some of these corporations are banks, and some are just corporations that employ large numbers of workers. While I can understand the need for a bailout, since nobody wants to see large numbers of people lose their jobs in a climate of already skyrocketing unemployment, and the American people are dependent on the solvency of the banks, what I don't understand is why the government would sweeten those massive bailouts with an exemption from paying taxes on the profits they make after receiving the bailouts. I don't understand why the government would not only allow, but help these large corporations shut down their American plants and relocate them in foreign countries, giving the jobs to foreigners. And the public pays.
For the past several decades, the American government has been giving tax credits to the wealthiest corporations, while at the same time raising the taxes on the middle class.
This year, even as I write this, congress is looking for ways to save money, pare down what they spend because for so many years the American government has been spending way more than it collects in taxes. Are they looking to find ways to reduce the perks for former presidents? NO! Are they looking to increase taxes for corporations that currently pay only a pinch more than 1% of their profits? NO! As a matter of fact, they are looking to find more ways to give more credits to more wealthy corporations! Are they looking for ways to decrease their own pay levels? NO! Are they even willing to freeze their own pay levels? NO! Are they changing the ways and amounts they spend on office expenditures? NO! Are they looking to eliminate or reduce the number of parties they throw and how much they spend on these parties? NO!
So what are they doing? They want to increase the taxes on the poorest, least able, most vulnerable members of society. They want to eliminate the programs that help women, newborns, the unborn, small children, the elderly and anyone who is at the highest risk of falling through the cracks. They want to eliminate Medicare - the program that helps medically extend the lives of the elderly, Medicaid - the program that helps medically extend the lives of the poorest, WIC - the program that feeds the poorest pregnant women and protects the health of the unborn and helps feed newborns, HEADSTART - the program that feeds kindergarten children who don't have money for breakfast, and Planned Parenthood - the program that helps young women prevent unwanted pregnancies and in some cases, end unwanted pregnancies. I understand that there are many people who resent their tax money being used to end the lives of the unborn, however the measures the government now wants to take to accomplish this by ending Planned Parenthood, in the end, not only serves to guarantee that more babies will be born to mothers that can't handle the extra strain, but also makes sure through their other measures that these babies will be born malnourished, deformed, underweight, and in the worst possible health. Most of these measures guarantee that health benefits will not be available to anyone who can't afford to pay for the benefits themselves. I guess being poor, unhealthy and vulnerable means I'm not seen as being worthy of staying alive. And if I reach 65, I've lived too long.
Also, they are sending money to foreign countries to help them fight their wars.
One may ask how do these things fit together? What does the beginning of this post which has to do with a can-do attitude and changing your internal realities have to do with the latter part which has to do with my general rant about what the government is doing that is going to destroy the finances of everyone who needs it most? That's a very good question, and that is what's coming next.
It's time for everyone to change their realities. It's time for everyone to change the rules. Yes. The most vulnerable are always going to need help. There will always be those who are too young, too weak or too ill to do anything for themselves. The answer doesn't lie in removing their life support. The American government needs to look for the other places to cut expenditures. They need to do more to get the American people back on their feet financially and back to work. They need to stop saying "I can't" in their own minds and change the internal realities they live by. They need to change the attitudes they take toward those they govern. They need to look at their own attitudes toward the money they believe they are entitled to use. At the same time, the American people need to hold their government accountable, and themselves.
The American people need to look at the things they do that sabotage themselves. People need to eat a better diet, but that isn't going to happen if those who are responsible for funding food stamps reduce funding for food. But the government is not wholly the ones at fault. Even when food stamps are not tampered with, people tend to buy the worst possible choices. It's no surprise that people lose their health. What makes matters more aggravating is that even when people receive all they are legally entitled to receive, food has become so expensive that the worst possible choices are the only ones they can afford. As a truth, junk food is less expensive than healthy food. To make it worse, our social services do not include dental care. Our leaders don't think we need teeth. Good foods are not chewable when you don't have teeth. That just leaves the junk foods. They are at least chewable when you only have gums remaining.
People need to stop taking health risks. They need to be more active and use less artificial food stuffs. They need to stop sexual activities that put them at high risk. They need to stop using drugs that can destroy them. They need to stop living in denial. They also need to stop living outside their financial means. I know this is sometimes impossible. Things happen. Accidents happen. Emergencies happen. If you're bringing in less money than you need to survive, it's understandable that you would live outside your means. However, just because it's understandable does not mean that it's OK to spend money on things you don't need. It's time to change your views on what exactly you need.
The people need to change their internal realities, the rules they live and think by. They need to stop seeing their work lives as being over when they turn 59 or 65 or whenever. They need to look at the wholeness of their lives and view themselves as productive their whole lives. They need to stop seeing the government as the catch all safety net for everyone, not just those who can't take care of themselves.
We all need to start getting more creative in how we are going to take care of everyone, not just those who had the financial means to ensure their financial and insurance future. There are ways to create insurance coops. If insurance companies aren't going to provide affordable rates, there has to be some financial genius out there somewhere who knows how to and is willing to create self-insuring coops.
People need to find ways to creatively make money.
The government needs to find ways to ease the tax burden for small businesses. The government needs to restructure the way taxes are collected. As it stands, the American government requires small business to pay the full tax on what they expect to earn throughout the year all before the year is half over. This alone is a travesty and a moral injustice. Businesses never earn their money evenly throughout the year. In times like these, nobody can foresee how much money they are going to make by the end of the year. The idea of taxing somebody the full amount of their yearly taxes before July even rolls around is obscene! I can't say this enough. This practice of collecting taxes before the money has been earned has to stop! It practically guarantees small business will go out of business.
There are ways the government could help people find more creative ways to make more money. They just don't want to. And that's the problem. People don't think they can, and the government just doesn't want to.
We ALL need to stop saying 'We can't.' and start saying 'We can. We must. We will'.
April 21, 2011
8:06 p.m. CST
