Reality Check: The Company We Keep

Posted on March 14, 2020 by RealityCheck

Depending on who you talk to, the world is either on the brink of destruction or it’s approaching a golden age of peace and prosperity.
Yes, both perceptions exist. You might not have realized that, because we seem to hear a lot more about the destruction aspect. Crisis is more exciting than peacefulness, and an exciting message, even a fear-filled one, gets attention.
To be clear, I’m not referring to any one situation that’s happening right now. By the time you read this, any current crisis will likely be replaced with a new one anyway.
Rather, I’m noticing an ongoing beat of negativity, horror, panic, and finger-pointing. Different crisis; similar responses. Continue reading →

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Reality Check: When we don’t like our advice

Posted on March 7, 2020 by RealityCheck

Advice is plentiful, whether we look for it or not. What to eat, where to live, how to act; you can find someone, somewhere, ready to offer their opinion.
How do you respond to advice that you don’t like?
When Jennifer moved from her hometown, she found a culture—friends, work, and relationships, that was quite at odds with her upbringing. Continue reading →

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Reality Check: Courage and Discouragement

Posted on February 29, 2020 by RealityCheck

If you’ve ever felt the thud of discouragement, you may have also felt that you have no control over how you respond. It’s a powerless feeling, isn’t it?
What brings on those discouraged feelings? Here are a few of the many possibilities.
When I am unable to do something, I could become discouraged because I perceive that I’m not very smart. When I can’t get along with people, I may become discouraged because I believe I’m not very compassionate. When I work and work with no satisfactory reward, I may be discouraged because I’m not appreciated enough.
Discouragement can come from the recognition that I’m not making progress in the direction that I want to go.
Learning is one area where I sometimes see discouragement, and the way folks deal with that discouragement can make a real difference in their lives. Continue reading →

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Reality Check: Agreements Among Friends

Posted on February 22, 2020 by RealityCheck

My old friend passed away. After a century of life, he’d reached his natural end. While our friendship was not so very old; it spanned only about a decade, it had huge influence on me. It was a special friendship, based completely on thinking—on ideas, curiosity, and animated discussions.
No topic was out of bounds for us. We talked about human nature, learning, economics, the weather, and even the untouchable topics of politics and religion. The whole gamut was fair game.
We didn’t always agree. Actually, to be completely honest, we approached many topics from pretty much opposite perspectives. Continue reading →

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Reality Check: The Compassion of Listening

Posted on February 17, 2020 by RealityCheck

If you have an active imagination, you may have a conversation going on in your head right now while you’re reading this.
Perhaps you are arguing with yourself over whether you should have said that thing you said to your friend the other day. Maybe you are worrying about some future possibility that may or may not happen. Continue reading →

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Reality Check: The Gift of a Deadline

Posted on February 8, 2020 by RealityCheck

Many of us have had to work to deadlines, even if we don’t always think of them as deadlines. Whether it’s called a due date at school, a vacation date at work, or even a gathering of friends for a party, the requirement to have specific things done by a specific date is pretty common.
Also common to many deadlines is that once the event has passed, you may as well stop working on it. There’s not much point in spending more time preparing for that one important interview once you’ve had it. There’s not a lot of value in studying one more hour for a specific test after you’ve written it. And once the birthday party is over, there’s little satisfaction to be had by continuing to fiddle with the decorations. Continue reading →

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Reality Check: The Dull of Winter

Posted on February 2, 2020 by RealityCheck

Winter. The dull days, grey clouds, rain, drizzle, fog, and yes, even snow, can be a hard time of year. It’s as if the sun takes a vacation (probably gone south.) For some folks, those dull days stir up dull, dreary feelings that are hard to shake.
If you are adversely affected by winter, you might wonder whether there’s anything you can do about it. You can’t change the weather. You could wait ten minutes and see if it changes on its own, but wishing and hoping doesn’t seem to do much. Continue reading →

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Reality Check: Working with Unpredictable People

Posted on January 26, 2020 by RealityCheck

While we can never predict exactly what will happen, many situations are quite predictable.
It’s painful to touch the hot stove. If I don’t believe it, it only takes one try to learn a lesson I won’t soon forget. Likewise, if I stay up too late, I’m tired the next day. And probably cranky.
We can learn a lot about the relationship between our behaviour and likely consequences from our experiences. Fortunately, we don’t have to personally experience every consequence; we can learn from other’s experiences, too! Continue reading →

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Reality Check: Take It to Heart? Or Not?

Posted on January 18, 2020 by RealityCheck

Whenever people need to interact with each other, there are opportunities for conflict. Conflict shows up among friends, within families, in community discussions and at workplaces.
That’s no surprise. After all, one reason for conflict is because people don’t agree on everything! We have different wants, different needs, and even different perceptions of the reality in which we live. Conflicts can naturally arise from those differences. Continue reading →

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Reality Check: Reassessing Wants

Posted on January 12, 2020 by RealityCheck

Dr. Robert Wubbolding suggests a deceptively simple four-part structure derived from the practice of Reality Therapy. He calls it WDEP: Want, Do, (self)Evaluate, and Plan.
The practice starts with, “What do you want?” Wants can be surprisingly confusing and the path to achieving those wants is not necessarily straight. Continue reading →

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