I'll start by saying that I am NO expert on parenting... and I feel inclined to side with The Onion when it comes to evaluating parenting styles. That said, my own parents were more often detractors than cheerleaders.
One of the things I most often remember being told was that something was "Not Realistic" in the context of some idea or plan I had come up with. Granted, I tended to have a pretty lively imagination!
But What IS "Reality?"
Meanwhile, I find myself contemplating this thing the entertainment industry has dubbed "Reality TV."
WTF, mate? The spectacle presented in those shows bears little resemblance to anything I've ever experienced as reality.
But what is reality?
As I look back, it seems most plausible to me that reality is something we each get to decide what is. And we each get to decide what is realistic, within the particular set of confines we have created. Doesn't mean we should expect people to agree with us!
I've met people for whom pretty much anything is within the realm of possibility. And sometimes they succeed at something I never would have thought realistically possible.
Playing Percentages and Risk Aversion
In a fairly recent post, @aggroed made a tongue-in-cheek case for $80 Hive by the end of 2021. Most of us would say that such a prediction is just not realistic.
But according to whose reality are we deciding that? In a previous iteration Steem went from less than seven cents on March 10th, to $8.57 about ten months later, a 124-fold increase in less than a year. If Hive rose 124-fold from where it is right now, it would actually reach $93.00.
Is that realistic?
My parents' "reality" in discouraging me from pretty much anything that wasn't "tried and true" and had a mile-long track record of reliability was a reflection of their reality of profound risk aversion.
Not unusual: for many people — particularly once they get past age 40-50 — the aversion to loss becomes stronger than the desire for gain.
Whose Reality IS it, Anyway?
When I was a teenager, my parents dispensing advice came from 50-somethings who had money in the bank, and whose primary concern was not to change the world but to maintain a comfortable status quo for the remainder of their lives.
They merely — in a truly well-meaning way — projected their reality onto me.
So what's my point here?
We like to think we know what is "real" and what is not, but the reality is that "reality" is actually a pretty slippery beast, a large part of the time.
"Pretty Girl Syndrome" and Other Improbabilities
Some more snowflake-like people might find the following offensive, but it's also interesting.
One of the more interesting people I knew "way back when" was my friend Jules. Jules was one of those women who was clearly front and center when everything got handed out: Looks, character, intelligence, personality, morals. She was stunning, in every sense of the word... and as down-to-earth and just plain nice as you would ever find in someone.
Jules was a very successful advertising sales executive, as well as a part-time aerobics instructor and a total psychology and sociology geek. It was around the latter our friendship was based.
In one of our very long and deep conversations about life and everything in it she posited that our (meaning the universal "our") sense of reality is substantially experiential.
She illustrated this by sharing her experience at a local hot night spot that always had a long line: She — "done up" to the nines for a night out — gets waved to the front of the line and ushered in without paying the $20 cover. Meanwhile, some "perfectly average guy" got to stand outside in line for two hours, only to be turned away because "We're not letting any more people in tonight."
Skipping over all the gender/values bullshit, her POINT was that if you asked these two people the next day — knowing they were in the same place, at the same time, wanting the same thing — "how their night went," you would get two 100% authentic and true stories that might as well have taken place on two different planets.
What is "Reality?"
In the case of the two people above what might be regarded as "easy" to accomplish — or not — would be quite different.
We Tend to Forget...
We often tend to forget that other people aren't necessarily "wired" the same as us. And that their experiences aren't the same as ours. And that the implications of our having the exact same experience isn't necessarily the same.
When I think back to my own parents as more detractors than cheerleaders, the bias I bring to situations — interpreted by me as "realistic" — is that most things will go down in flames. When I encounter someone who firmly believes they will always succeed, I see them as "unrealistic," even though their actual experience may well be that 95% of what they attempt turns out well!
As such, I struggle with the idea that "realistic" can even be globally attributed... it's a very individual thing!
Whether that is a realistic way of thinking... remains to be seen!
Thanks for reading, and have a great remainder of your weekend!
How about YOU? How do YOU arrive at what you consider "realistic?" Do you think what's realistic tends to be largely subjective, and depends on the individual? Comments, feedback and other interaction is invited and welcomed! Because — after all — SOCIAL content is about interacting, right? Leave a comment — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!
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Created at 20210918 23:46 PDT
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