S.O.S. My Reality Wouldn’t Fit into My Fantasy

Excerpt from, The Gratitude Effect
By Dr. John Demartini

We must learn to tailor our concepts to fit reality, instead of trying to stuff reality into our concepts.
                                                 —Victor Daniels

Dear Friends,

Why can’t we be happy all the time? The answer is simple – because the one sided mask called happiness by itself is a fantasy and an illusion. The addiction to this one tiny illusion gives rise to a whole realm of social concerns – stress, heartache, hopelessness, anger, resentment, blame, depression and even suicide! There are twelve major fantasies or delusions that people often live with, and those fantasies are major obstacles on the path to gratitude and are ultimately a cause of our nightmares. How can we be grateful for life when in our delusional fantasy world we know exactly how life is “supposed” to be?

I am going to let you in on a big secret. Life is the way it is. If we want it to correspond to our fantasies, we are setting ourselves up for self-defeat, anger, frustration, negativity and ingratitude.

The first delusional fantasy is expecting others to live outside of the universal laws. Sometimes we expect only half of our partner, spouse, friends, sister, neighbor, classmate, or a stranger. We want people always to be nice without ever being mean, always kind without ever being cruel, cooperative without ever being competitive, etc. We only want the “good stuff”. Expecting people to be one-sided beings is like expecting to find a one-sided magnet. Have you ever seen one? The second fantasy is expecting others to be living outside of their values. If we expect them to abandon their values and live according to ours, we are guaranteed disappointment and frustration. Anger is nothing but a projection of our own values onto someone and expecting them to prefer our values to their own.

The third fantasy is the combination of the first two. It manifests when we want people to be someone they can’t be because it’s against the laws of the universe and outside of their values.

The same applies to us. If we expect ourselves to live outside of the universal laws, we are trying to live out fantasy number four. We want only to be happy, never sad; only supportive, never challenging; always positive, never negative. But we cannot be living someone else’s values either, and to expect that of ourselves is another fantasy. The last two fantasies combined produce an even bigger fantasy. That’s number six. And, the next big fantasy, drum roll please, is to be doing it to others and ourselves simultaneously. That’s all of the above fantasies together. How can we have gratitude for the world or for ourselves if we are trying to change everything and everyone into something or someone they cannot be?

The eighth and ninth fantasies are the unrealistic expectations on what we imagine God to be (often some anthropomorphic projection of our mortal selves); and to live outside the laws of the universe and to live outside our own projected human values. The tenth fantasy is the combination of the eighth and ninth delusions.

The eleventh and twelfth fantasies are the unrealistic expectations of mechanical objects to defy the laws of physics that govern them, and to perform in any manner other than that for which they were designed.

Reality doesn't bite, rather our perception of reality bites.
-Anthony J D'Angelo

The greatest discovery is that we have the power to alter our sensory perceptions and our motor functions. It means that we can change the way we perceive our world, or we can change the way we act on it. If we are dissatisfied with how things are going in our life, we always have these two options. If nothing else, when it seems like our life is going in the opposite direction from our goals and dreams, at least it is giving us feedback to correct our perceptions or course. Setting our goals according to the universal laws and our highest values is the wisest way to take control over our destiny and to transform our world. I am convinced that we cannot achieve fulfillment by running away from half of our life into the world of fantasies where everyone is always nice and looks like a supermodel, where there’s perpetual honeymoon and no stress. These fantasies are the very source of our mental suffering and depression. I personally gave up the mask of so-called happiness because it made me too sad. I prefer the true and balanced power of the Gratitude Effect.

Love and Wisdom,
John

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