The REAL Thing - Grasshopper

I remember an ad for Coca-Cola years ago claiming it was “The Real Thing.” That along with the expressions “The Real McCoy” and “The One True God” recently got me wondering if there truly was one “real” thing. I think there is.

It’s the thing you can count on day in and day out without ever casting a doubt. It’s omnipresent. It’s kinda’ like dog poop it’s everywhere.

 

It’s not that we don’t recognize it, but we do often ignore it, pooh-pooh it, or flat out deny its existence. Doing any of those things takes us deep into the world of illusion, where we spin tales of fantasy that fit our narrative, but the fairy dust we create doesn’t allow the real thing to abate. It’s like a dog with a bone.

 

What, pay tell, is this tenacious thing that’s as real as real gets? It’s in your life every minute of every day and there is no way to make it go away. Sometimes its welcome and quite often it’s not. So, it’s time for me to stop stalling and reveal the plot.

 

The real thing is reality.

 

Reality can’t be bent to our will, and it never stands still. It’s active every day we draw breath and the key to coexisting with it is not railing against it but responding to it. It’s kind of like the sailing maneuver called tacking. You respond to the wind that’s blowing, not the wind you wish was there.

 

There are few things you can count on in this lifetime; reality is one of them. It’ll be there whether you like it or not. When you decide to respond to it rather than predictably react and stay glued to it, you open up a world of real options and can select the ones that blow more favorably in your direction.

 

Like its ad would say, “Reality, it’s the real thing.”

 

All the best,