If you're asked to distinguish between what is real and unreal, what would your answer be? Well, if you're not a philosopher, psychologist or scientist, the answer would be, things that can be directly perceived through the senses and experienced in the world around you. This includes physical objects, people and events that can be seen, heard, touched, tasted or smelled. But is it actually the case? Is what we think real actually real? Does what we feel is real?
There is no doubt that the physical world which we perceive around ourselves is real, unless you don't suffer from Schizophrenia or any brain related abnormalities. But there is a tradeoff in that. We tend to believe that objects in our physical world possess the property of colors, but that's not true.
The physical objects themselves don't have colors, they just reflect light with certain wavelengths and our eyes and brains generate the colors. Well, I think now you might be surprised and in a doubt that, "have I been looking and thinking about the world the wrong way?". But wait, there's even more you need to know.
Picture a scenario where a teenage kid suddenly stumbles on the ground in the hallway at high school and others start mocking and laughing at him. The kid starts feeling insecure and a storm of negative thoughts enters his mind like "I'm useless, no one will ever want my friendship", "I'm such a loser" etc. while that wasn't the case since most of students in that hallway might've simply forgot about the incident. As a result of such thoughts in victim's mind, he never approached to make friends because of his unnecessary thoughts and ends up being alone and depressed.
In this scenario, the kid's assumptions made his reality. If the kid had ignored and let go of that incident, he might've continued to move on with his life happily. He might've not been depressed and could've made some lifelong friendships but in the end, he was lonely, all because of his thoughts.
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| Image by Laurenz Kleinheider on Unsplash |
Is our reality and what are we, created based on our own thoughts? Have we been misled into believing something to be real that, upon closer examination seems to be illusion. If that's the case, have we been wasting our time and energy unnecessarily? Egocentric predicament tells us that everything we know and everything we feel depends and is inside of our brains, including our physical world.
We define ourselves and our reality! If we think, we're confident then we ARE confident. If we think we're a loser then we ARE a loser. If we think we're resilient, then we ARE resilient.
Harnessing the power of thinking
Our thoughts and strong beliefs become real for us, even if it's a lie. What we consistently tell ourselves become our reality. That's the potential of thoughts and beliefs. The way we use this potential depends on us, either we could use this potential negatively leading to no growth or positively leading to growth of ourselves.
If you wish to be creative, believe that you're creative. If you're nervous before speaking in front of an audience, shift your thoughts and convince yourself that it's not nervousness, it's excitement of speaking in front of a huge crowd. Modify your negative thoughts to positive ones to build a positive and better reality for yourself.
References:
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220216-the-man-rethinking-the-definition-of-reality
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