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Play out in the real world, not imaginary ones
Sunday, 10 June 2007
One of the blessings and the curses of modern life is the endless potential for us to get lost in imaginary worlds. Television, books, games, the internet, magazines and many other fantasy environments beckon us from every direction. These imaginary worlds can be so seductive, and realistic, that we can become lost in them and kid ourselves that we're actually connected to them in some way.
A good example of this is a girl I used to know in college. Like many women, she had a fascination with relationships, both loving and platonic. You could tell that she secretly yearned to be the popular girl in school, who all the boys wanted and all the girls befriended.
The problem was that she wasn't very attractive. This was partly the fault of random chance, she wasn't born classically beautiful, but also partly her own fault. She used to dress in a frumpy manner, allowed herself to become overweight, and didn't have a lot of friends.
To compensate for her lack of success in reality, she got lost in the fantasy world of daytime soap operas. She actually used to skip class to stay at home and watch "The Bold and The Beautiful" or "Days of our Lives". When she should have been out trying to build the life she wanted in reality, instead she stayed indoors and played out a shadow of it in a fantasy world.
The sad thing is that being in this fantasy world certainly had a negative effect on her success in reality. Because she was in front of the TV eating junk food all the time, she became overweight. Because she wasn't out shopping with her friends, her fashion sense took a dive. Because she wasn't socialising, her interpersonal skills became blunted.
Many people will read about my friend and think she was a little pathetic, and the truth is they're probably right. But how guilty are you of this same flaw?
I know plenty of men who are addicted to sports. They talk about nothing but football, cricket, or baseball. Yet for most of them, it's been years since they actually participated in these events. Instead, they prefer to sit in a pub and watch them on TV, with the fantasy that this somehow means they are active participants.
I also often come across people who are interested in politics. They have very definite ideas about the direction the country should be taking and how things should be changed. Yet, instead of doing anything about these ideas, they simply hang around on political blogs all day getting into petty arguments in the comments section.
Self-help addicts are classic cases of those living in a fantasy world. Often, they attend countless seminars and read endless books imagining that this is making a difference to their lives. Yet in reality, they've made no changes whatsoever. They're living the same old lives but imagining the wonderful existence they could be leading if only they could "visualise" it enough or some other nonsense.
Fantasy worlds are all well and good for a bit of entertainment. They may even improve your skills a little. But nothing beats going out to face cold, hard reality and getting feedback from it. Yes, the world can be a bit painful sometimes, and yes the stakes are higher.
But the rewards are better also. Most fantasy world addicts know this deep down if for no other reason than their imaginary victories feel a little empty. Get some real-world triumphs under your belt, and your life will take a dramatic turn for the better.
 | Six simple ways to get more out of life | | We all sometimes feel a bit drab and down, when everything seems a bit pointless and empty. If you're feeling that way, here are some suggestions of simple things to do to get more out of life. |  | Work on your weaknesses first | | We all know somebody who's excellent in some parts of their lives, but performs poorly at others. You might be such a person yourself. It's so much easier to spend time improving what we're already good at, than to concentrate on our weaknesses. | | Don't waste your life tied up in petty squabbles | | There's a guy I know who always seems to be involved in some kind of dispute. He'll spend months fighting the council over a parking ticket, the tax office over his income tax, and his workmates over the volume of their phone's ring. No matter how small the disagreement, he just can't seem to let himself back down or drop it. |  | Get control of your auto-pilot | | The world is a complicated and chaotic place. There's much too much going on for any of us ever to be able to come to grips with it all. But humans have developed a way to cope with this overwhelming complexity. It's called routine. | | Don't be afraid to ask dumb questions | | Richard Feynman, a Nobel Prize winning physicist and one of the greatest geniuses of the 20th century, was a great believer in asking dumb questions. In fact, his autobiography Surely You're Joking Mr Feynman, goes into great detail about his habit of asking the most basic of questions. | | A good anger management trick | | We all get angry sometimes and “lose it”. Good things rarely come from such episodes. Wouldn’t it be better if we could deal with the world more rationally, and keep negative emotions out of it all? Here’s a good trick for doing just that. |  | How to deal with many of the world's troublemakers | | Nobody lives on planet Earth for long without discovering that it's full of troublemakers - people who delight in making life difficult for others. Almost immediately most of us start our interactions with other people as young children, we come across some kid who wants to stir things up for no good reason. | | Work hard to give yourself lots of options and opportunities | | Always finish what you start, is an adage that many people try to follow. And it's a good one in a lot of ways. But it probably focusses too much on the importance of the entire process towards achieving a goal. Generally, it's the earlier part that's most important, in my view. | | Face some moments of truth | | What leads us to want to improve ourselves? Where is it that we can even find out how such an improvement can occur? The answer, generally is in moments of truth. | | Five simple memory tricks | | Here are a few really simple tricks for remembering things that I've found useful. None of them are going to revolutionize your life, but I think you’ll see they come in handy. |
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