NPR- Being Realistic

Wishful thinking. We all do that. It's the reality of being human, wishing and hoping for the best in some situation, work, or something important to us. It's a vital part of our existence, knowing that there is always something better than the current situation or that things can and may get better. If we only wished or had hope?

When we embark on something that will take a long time, such as years, take a lot of mental and physical energy, and require a significant financial investment, we like to think we will know the end. We can think through all the scenarios to some reasonable conclusion to anticipate any potential problems or hurdles. We can then think through the solutions. And in the end of our initial thinking, we can see what we think is the outcome.

Or so we can hope. Such is wishful thinking. At the start of anything it's always wishful thinking and hope. It's all we got to feel in our heart it's right, and it's all we got in to know it's right. Sometimes, however, we lose sight of that and lose sight of being realistic as things change. And sometimes, it's our downfall. While we can find reasons why something didn't go right or turn out right, it was only because we weren't realistic.

We let our hope and wishful thinking override reality. People who are consistently optimistic consistently ignore reality, and let our hope continually see what isn't there. Some say that's good, but it's not, and not realistic. These people often either become discouraged, hateful, angry or depressed when faced with the reality of their life and situation.

On the other hand people with Dysthymia consistently see things on the slightly to moderately negative side. Studies have shown we often see things too realistically, meaning we look to much at the larger picture of our life or situation, and take wishful thinking as just that, and not achieveable. At best, we expect to get something toward our goal and at worst, fail. We often take pride in our judgement that it was realistic.

And that's our downfall.