Wise people say that expectations create suffering and disappointment. And indeed, you shouldn’t expect too much from life and from people, so as not to be disappointed either in people or in life. When we expect something from other people, we stop accepting them for who they are and want them to be who we want them to be.
We want to change them, but this is simply impossible (read about this in the article “Is it possible to change a man?”). Hence there are many quarrels and separations, many grievances and complaints.
Illusion - a saving fairy tale
Illusion is the new reality. She is needed to escape from the cruelty and injustice of life into her fiction. Moreover, over time they turn into beliefs. As if it were so...
But one day the illusions will begin to crumble. This is where the tragedy begins. I invented a prince for myself, madly in love, rich, wise and understanding. But it turned out to be a duke who cannot leave his wife and feeds only with promises. I pictured a beautiful future life for myself with a villa in the Seychelles and billions of dollars. But in reality, you’re too lazy to even take up sports, let alone increase your income level.
I would like to blame the world for being somehow wrong and not meeting expectations. But the illusory approach to it turns out to be wrong. This is dangerous due to lifelong suffering and being stuck at one point. And unfulfilled hopes are only a small part of the losses.
Along with unfulfilled expectations, time also passes. Sometimes whole lives. After all, it 's an illusion
-
this is
a refusal to exist “here and now.” It's an endless hovering in a future that will never happen. And in old age the realization will come with pain: “I didn’t live. And what were these non-existent pictures for?”
How to get rid of expectations
Review your life, find moments when everything worked out. Remember how you thought? What was the perception? And most importantly, try to start looking at life, rejoicing at opportunities, rather than complaining about failures. This skill, like a good habit, must be reinforced for life. It is difficult to break yourself in one day, or even in a week or month. Therefore, just try to gradually apply the acquired knowledge in practice.
Namely, start to rejoice within every opportunity that arises, thereby you, like a muscle, will begin to increase the level of your happiness, and, accordingly, after some time you will see more and more situations that will delight you.
And expectations are tension, illusions and, ultimately, disappointments. Give thanks for what you have and you will receive many times more. Learn to give up your expectations and accept life as it is. When you learn to refuse and let go of situations, then you will begin to get what you want. Thank you for your attention to my article and I will be grateful if you subscribe to my Instagram! There's a lot of interesting things there! Click the button below and subscribe:
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Is it possible to dream?
What then to do with dreams, images in a year, five, ten years? Also forget and remain in that dear, but still stuck in the real world?
Illusions and dreams, fortunately, are not the same thing. If you listen to yourself, you can easily distinguish between them.
The first ones are in severe conflict with reality, and you feel it. There is an ever-growing discomfort inside. Either the far-fetched image deviates from the course, or the desires are not real, but imposed. Family, society, influential person. In both cases, you feel pressure and an outflow of energy. Every step to the side is pain, a new broken window in your home-soul. Therefore, you need to immediately get rid of illusions
so as not to completely destroy yourself.
Dreams work differently. They inspire. They force you to try, make mistakes, fall, shake off your broken knees and move forward again. When desires find a response in the soul, a lot of vital energy is generated for their fulfillment. They never come into conflict with reality. On the contrary, it seems that you are being pulled towards your cherished dreams.
This is how you can distinguish between illusions and real desires. What to do if you find destructive inventions in yourself?
What is illusionism
It is no coincidence that the name of this philosophical movement is consonant with the word “illusionist,” which we use to mean “magician.”
Philosopher and writer Keith Frankish, author of Illusionism as a Theory of Consciousness and a PhD candidate at the University of Sheffield in the UK, explains the concept of illusionism through magic tricks. Imagine: you see on stage how a magician performs telekinesis - that is, moves objects “with the power of thought.” You can offer several explanations for this phenomenon. The first is that it is real, quite understandable from the point of view of science, we just have not yet discovered those laws of physics that could give it a rational justification. The second is that the trick is carried out with the help of well-studied physical phenomena, such as electromagnetism. In this case the event is still real. Finally, there is a third option: decide that this is all an illusion and no telekinesis is happening - and then try to explain how the magician managed to trick your brain so much.
So, the first two interpretations correspond to the concept of realism, and the last one corresponds to the philosophical concept of illusionism. Illusionism denies the reality, the objectivity of any phenomenon - and focuses on how the perception of it as real, existing in this world arises.
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Choosing the truth
To return to real life, you need to stop deceiving yourself. Every time you enjoy an imaginary future or ideal image, ask yourself the question: “Am I being honest with myself now? Do I really need this? It may be difficult at first to understand where is self-deception and where is the truth. Here again, sensations will help. Listen carefully to your heart. It always knows the right answer.
It is especially difficult to break the unrealistic image of a man. Especially if he has been replacing his real partner for many years... But there is a way out here too. Write down all the positive, in your opinion, qualities inherent in your loved one. See how they manifest themselves. How the ideal picture is supported by real actions.
Kind, caring - does he take care of you, provide for you, give you gifts? Understanding, loving - he has no other family, he belongs only to you? He promises mountains of gold - did he deliver? Do your life values coincide?
It will be painful to realize that in fact the man turned out to be a consumer, a deceiver, a hypocrite in the relationship... And perhaps the illusion will not want to leave, and will again try to protect you from the evil world. But be uncompromising. Don't give her a chance. The sooner a destructive relationship ends, the sooner you can find true happiness.
But get rid of illusions
not enough. It is important to prevent new castles in the air. To do this, you need to accept yourself and other people as they are. Understand that not everything goes smoothly, and not all our expectations come true exactly as we want.
And the most important thing is to see that we ourselves are the creators of our lives. And it depends only on us and our actions what our reality will be. Watch this video and take responsibility for everything that happens. You will become happy and fulfilled.
How to stop living in illusions
I consider one of the main achievements of personal therapy to be the fact that I stopped living a fictitious life.
Since childhood, every day and every hour I lived two scenarios simultaneously - like two sound sequences during editing.
The first scenario is the real and external me. The one who remained silent, swallowed, didn’t do, didn’t say, didn’t come out, didn’t push through, didn’t show herself, and somewhere on the contrary, didn’t show herself the way she wanted. This part of me is 90% “not” and there are a number of reasons for this.
This is a movement from scarcity, not from excess. Conventionally, this is when we do something “as if it’s no worse.” Vivid examples: I don’t leave a boring job because I don’t know what’s ahead / I stay in a relationship so as not to be alone / I don’t speak publicly so as not to embarrass myself and feel ashamed. Many actions in my life were performed from a deficit and in order not to have something. I very rarely went to the point of yes.
And everything would have continued like this if it weren’t for the second audio track in the edit. If it weren’t for the second scenario that I was scrolling through in my head, I wouldn’t know that you can move towards and do it because you want to do it, despite everything.
According to the second scenario, I did everything, said it, pushed it, came up with it, went out and showed up. And I called this second scenario an imaginary me and an imaginary life.
But this was a purely internal fictional life, which rarely manifested itself outside. These were illusions about how things could be.
I was always sure that I was not smart enough, beautiful, talented, successful enough, and that all my achievements were an accident that I really wanted to repeat. And I repeated. I changed professions, searched for myself, built relationships with people, received feedback that I could not assimilate.
My egotism did not allow me to adequately assess reality and my contribution to it. Positive feedback passed through, and I continued to live in my illusions about who I really am - stupid, ugly, unworthy, etc.
I have to be good to everyone
This illusion is very energy-consuming, because you won’t be able to be good to everyone, no matter how hard you try. Each of us has our own value system and picture of the world, which means that we will always have both supporters and opponents, and this is absolutely normal.
The presence of this illusion leads to vulnerability, dependence on the opinions of others, as well as perfectionism. A person will constantly expend his energy trying to please someone and get upset if this does not happen. Working on your self-esteem will help you take back control.
Mind games
A study published in 2022 in the journal Scientific Reports found that the brain plays ahead. In the experiment, volunteers were asked to choose between two patterns of different colors and locations. Subjects were shown flashing images, and scientists observed them using an fMRI machine. Ultimately, they were able to correlate patterns of brain activity with any choice the subject made.
In fact, scientists have long known about repeating patterns of brain activity that can correlate with decision making. The team also found that subjects' brain activity could predict their possible choices even before they were asked to make that choice.
To process huge amounts of visual information, the brain sends us back in time
When we need to make a choice between two or more options, unconscious traces of thoughts, a bit like unconscious hallucinations, are already present. We found that the executive areas of the brain select a clearer mental trail before making decisions,” study co-author Professor Joel Pearson told Science Alert.
In other words, if any brain activity corresponds to one of the decisions made, then the brain is more likely to choose that option. This means that the decision we are going to make is predetermined .
constantly sends us back 15 seconds to create the illusion of stability, although he himself sees a physically changing object.
You may be interested in: What is neuroplasticity and why scientists still cannot understand how the brain works?
The researchers found that they could predict the outcome 11 seconds before the subject began to think about the decision. It turns out that free will as such does not exist. And the results of a new study paint an even more amazing picture - scientists believe that the brain is like a time machine.
What is all this for?
All practices of increasing awareness and getting closer to your true essence have one goal - to lift the “veil” between the human and the divine in yourself, to live your true essence, to be present in every moment of your life, and also to maintain awareness after death. All this is called in different teachings with one simple word “Awakening”. The highest goal of human development is to wake up in your real life and see the world as it is, creating your true will and being free from illusions.
Dreams about dreams
A separate caste of “illusionists” are writers, screenwriters and other creative personalities connected with their own fiction by special subtle relationships, balancing from complete involvement to detached analysis. On the one hand, their task is to completely consciously and reliably recreate a different reality, controlling it at every stage of the process; on the other hand, sometimes the fiction is so believable that they even have to explain to the audience that the author himself is “not a camel.” For example, the author of Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov, was accused of everything after this novel - the figment of his imagination seemed too convincing and autobiographical to many. And the author of the hobbits and “The Lord of the Rings” - an English writer and poet, translator, linguist, professor at Oxford University, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, hardly ran through the forests in a wizard’s cap - unlike the army of fans of his talent who like to live in the fairy tale he invented . But if the author himself does not at least partially believe in what he is doing and does not get along with his characters, who will even believe him?
Both bloggers and many public people love meaningful manipulations with reality. Their destiny is to entertain the crowd by selling them a beautiful picture, albeit a fake one. And this is not counting Internet trolls who simply download certain emotions from others through various tricks. They all understand perfectly well how things really are, but they broadcast to others some kind of artistic production.
In ordinary life, everything is much simpler: illusions help people survive. For example, it is easier for women to think that their husband is not cheating at all, the lipstick on his shirt is actually ketchup, his “meeting” really lasted until the morning, and so on. And if “He” looked, then this is, of course, love for life. Of course, then all these myths will collapse with a roar, but while they exist, life is much more fun.
Naturally, cinema, the main “dream factory” of the modern world, does not shy away from this topic. The films “Vanilla Sky” (2001), “Loves or Loves” with Audrey Tautou (2002), “Anna M” (2007), “About Love” (2010) and many others are dedicated to how seriously a person can break away from reality and move to a fictional world where he is pleasant, safe and comfortable.
According to the plot of “Vanilla Sky,” the hero of the film is a young, handsome and rich playboy (played by Tom Cruise) who, after an accident, becomes disfigured, his girlfriend leaves him, and his life collapses. The hero cannot bear to live in this form, but the corporation of the future, which he found on the Internet, sells him an “alternative reality.” In it, he is cured, regains his appearance, love, influence - and, of course, remembers nothing about the real past. But something still haunts him, and this “something” ultimately leads to tragedy.
"Anna M." and “Loves - loves not” - in principle, about the same thing: unbalanced young ladies fall in love with doctors and, mistaking random signs of attention for reciprocity, begin to desperately and increasingly pursue their chosen ones. In the story, both nymphomaniacs have a lot of fun, but the life of the health workers turns into a complete nightmare. By the way, such girls should take another film into their arsenal - “Pretty Woman”: Julia Roberts’ heroine, the prostitute Vivienne, did not want to be content with illusions and waited until the hero (Richard Gere) did something real - namely, crawl onto her floor on the fire escape with a marriage proposal. In other words, until the other side indicates in direct text and actions the seriousness of its intentions, women should not count on anything.
“About Lyuboff” also reveals two truths and two views on the same events - female and male, and these lines do not even intersect with each other. In general, women are romantic creatures and love to exaggerate reality in their favor. The guy (the hero of the film) doesn’t need anything special, but the heroine falls in love with him “without hind legs.” Moreover, in this plot, unlike the previous two, the girl does not suffer from any mental disorder. And, to be fair, there are plenty of them in real life.
