To Be Realistic In Life (Part 1)

In business, our goal is to make profit and the profit is to be measurable. It means that profit can be measured to the exact units of measurement - money. Profit is equal to income minus expenses. It is tangible, it is countable, it is real. In daily life, we can also have the similar measurement of success, with much broader applications. We aim at having better lives, and better lives mean today is better than yesterday. It means that today we gain something more than what we have yesterday. In terms of measurement units, the gain can be anything - knowledge, friends, money, experience, or even a better attitude - or anything is possible as long as it is something good.

Whether profit or a better life, we want to have a purpose so that our lives can be useful and meaningful. However, it is important that the purpose is realistic and achievable. We are talking about something real, something that has shapes and colors, touchable and visible, something that physically exists. Why? Because many of us have dreams and ideas, but not as many are able to put them into reality. There is a whole world of difference between dream and reality. Anybody can dream, and we all should have dreams, but can anybody make the dream a reality? The answer is definitely no.

Some people actually have problem in distinguishing the two - they thought dreaming about it is the same as having it in reality, until the reality kicks in and hits them hard in the face. What is a dream and what is a reality, why do we have to separate them apart? Dream is a vision about something that we would like to have, but we don\'t have it yet. When we have a dream, we hope or we wish to have it. Hope and wish alone cannot help us, a dream requires work to make it a reality. On the other hand, reality is something that we already have. When people are too lazy to take the efforts or when circumstances create too many hurdles, too big to handle, they like to pretend as if they already have it. Pretending creates the illusion of feeling good as if having it in reality. It is like using drugs to make you happy because you cannot have it in real life. When this happens, people cannot tell the difference between reality and the mere illusion.

It is when we cannot differentiate between what we have and what we don\'t have, problems start to emerge. When you don\'t have it, you cannot derive the benefit from the object. When you don\'t have a car, you cannot drive and you cannot go to whatever destination you want to go, regardless how strong you dream of having a car! In business, when you don\'t have the revenue in your bank account, you cannot pay your obligations - debts, salaries, etc - regardless the strong income projection you have.

On the other hand, the distinction is also important when we consider the impact. What we actually have creates impacts, either positive or negative. We will suffer from the negative impacts regardless how much we try to push them aside. It is only human nature that we like to procrastinate. We like to pretend as if the problem doesn\'t exist so that we don\'t have to deal with it. But unsolved problem will only grow bigger and bigger before it explodes. The recent sub-prime mortgage in the U.S. and the monetary crises in Indonesia were the harsh evidence of how a bubble can burst. Denial will not help solve the problem. Solving problem on the spot helps prevent a problem from getting worse - if only we are willing to face it and deal with it. Having debt collectors knocking on the door is something real that we have to deal with, if we don\'t want the debts to eat us alive.

Therefore, knowing what we have and what we don\'t have is important because it helps us reap the benefits and prevent negative impacts. How can we know that something is real? Touch it and feel it and you know that it exists.

Continue Read Part 2 Click HERE