"Reality is only an illusion, albeit a very persistent i."
–Albert Einstein; scientist, awesomist

I was hanging out in my sunny California home one morning, reading the newspaper with the doors flung open and the stereo blasting, when all of a sudden a bird came tearing into my living room. He was flapping around like a maniac, flying into lamps and plants, spreading leaves, feathers, poop and panic all over the identify.

In an attempt to escape, he kept slamming himself into the window while I feebly chased him effectually with a flip flop, trying to guide him back towards the open door. Information technology was atrocious to watch–the poor guy was all panting and wild-eyed, his little birdy middle no doubt nigh to explode with fright while he threw himself over and once more into the glass at full speed.

I finally managed to escort him outside to freedom, and so spent a very bothered few minutes calming my ain trivial-birdy heart while I revisited the scene of the accident. I imagined his defoliation and frustration: "I can see the heaven! Information technology's right in that location! If I wing hard and fast plenty I know I can attain information technology!"

It fabricated me think of the way so many of united states of america alive our lives. We can encounter what we want, and most kill ourselves trying to go information technology in a style that'due south non working. Meanwhile, if nosotros just stopped, got quiet for a minute or two and looked at things a lilliputian differently, nosotros'd notice the door to what we want being held open for united states of america by the nice lady in the bathrobe across the room. Then all we'd have to do is fly through it.

Oh, the drama nosotros create for ourselves!

Nosotros're and so deeply wrapped up in our stories–I don't have the coin, I'm not skilful enough, I can't quit my job, I'm lazy, I have bad hair–trudging through life with our heads downward, clinging to our false behavior like lifeboats full of doo-doo, that we prevent ourselves from seeing the literally space ocean of possibilities and opportunities surrounding us at every single moment.

Accept yous e'er walked down a street that you've walked downwardly a meg times and suddenly noticed a firm or a tree or a mailbox or something else totally obvious and in-your-face that you lot've never noticed before? Or have you ever of a sudden get enlightened of the eye color of someone you've known for years? Or have you ever looked at your female parent and thought, I was within of that woman once!? All this stuff didn't of a sudden appear and and then you noticed information technology, it was there all along, you merely weren't experiencing it because your focus was directed somewhere else.

Hither's a absurd practise: Right at present, look around wherever you are and count the number of things you see that are red. Take near a minute and count them all. Now stop, look dorsum at this page without taking your eyes off of it, and try to think of everything around you that's yellow. There'due south probably a ton of yellowish, but y'all didn't run across it because yous were looking for cerise.

What you choose to focus on becomes your reality.

And that's just an example of what we're non noticing that we can see. There's also an space amount of emotions and thoughts and behavior and interpretations and sounds and dreams and opportunities and smells and points of view and ways to feel good and responses and not-responses and things to say and means to help. Still, considering we're so set in our ways and committed to our stories almost who we are and what our reality looks like, we only scratch the very surface of all that's available to us every unmarried moment. Meanwhile, we're totally surrounded by countless awesome versions of reality, and they're all just hanging around like a bunch of shy teenage girls at the prom, leaning against the walls, waiting for u.s.a. to ask them to trip the light fantastic.

As the poet William Blake so eloquently stated: "If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to human as it is, infinite."

So… why would you create anything that'due south not totally crawly? I mean, we're only talking about your life here. If you chose to get over all your reasons why the money you so desire is evil or your identity equally someone who'south scared of intimacy or your attachment to a plethora of other excuses that you perceive to exist very serious and existent when they're really probably kind of cute and ridiculous–you could literally create any reality you want.

Whenever I become impressed by a peculiarly creative array of new excuses I've come up up with, or outset to organize an elaborate pity political party for myself, I turn to Ray Charles. I don't ofttimes listen to his music, but I always think nearly Ray when I need a kick in the buttinski. He was a broke, blind, minority who was orphaned by the age of fifteen and raised in the "colored part of town" in a time when slavery wasn't all that distant of a retentiveness, and he went on to become one of the most influential and successful American musicians of all time. Basically, he wasted no fourth dimension on excuses.

Whatever trivial woe-is-me-ism that I try to hold upwards against Ray instantly wilts into the sniveling piffling "nice attempt" that it is, and I'yard forced to look upon my life, and my excuses, with a new perspective. Really? Yous're really going to allow that end yous?

All yous have to exercise is make the choice to let go of everything you're so attached to that's non serving you and manifest the reality that you want. Life is an illusion created by your perception, and it tin be inverse the moment you choose to alter it.

Our unabridged experience on this planet is determined by how we choose to perceive our reality.

I know. As if. It tin can't be that like shooting fish in a barrel. If information technology was that simple, how could I possibly have spent all this time banging my head against the glass wall of my own self-created ho-hummery?


But before you get into a bad mood about it, retrieve: All this stumbling around in the realities nosotros pretend to be stuck in is very valuable because information technology allows united states to grow and learn and evolve–crude seas make better sailors–just you go to choose how long you want to stay in schoolhouse and work on the same bug over and over and over. Your graduation cap and gown are cleaned and pressed and waiting for you lot whenever you want to put them on, all you have to do is allow become of your present story and rewrite a new i that fits who you truly are.