Reality Repair: Fixing What You Don't Like

REALITY REPAIR: FIXING WHAT YOU DON’T LIKE

By William Cottringer           

     There is a secret that only a few people know about. The secret is that you can get what you want by creating the realities you like. This is the simplest truth in life and yet very few people fully embrace it, completely understand it, or totally use it. That is why so many people accept failure in trying to survive lives of quiet desperation instead of leaping forth and thriving in endless success. The problem is that you have to fix your broken realities before you can create the ones you want. As usual, we have the cart before the horse and the tail is wagging the dog.             

     Life, love and free will are the three greatest gifts God gives us. And when we use our soulful tools of compassion, forgiveness and reconciliation, we learn how to appreciate and enjoy life better, to love and be loved more fully and unconditionally, and to use our free will more responsibly to make choices that get the best results for us and others. By doing these things, we are living a good life and making a difference in creating a good reality; the result is an unmistakable sense of success, satisfaction, joy and peace. That is what we all really want.         

     So what goes wrong in this sure success formula? Simply put, we are unaware of how we sabotage our own realities and shape them into what we don’t want. And to make matters worse, we fail to notice what we are failing to notice about the connection between our approach and the results we get. Below are the four main failures that need to be repaired to create the realities you want and like. Resistance in acknowledging these failures only prolongs their power over us.   

WANTING THE RIGHT THING      

     Being crystal clear on what you want is a good start on asking for it and then getting it. But taking the time to explore why you want it to make sure it is the right thing behind the packaging, will assure a higher success rate in getting it. If I want to be a best-selling author for all the money, glory and influence, I may not succeed; but if I just want to learn how to communicate some helpful ideas that I have learned the hard way and which I feel can help other people be happier and more successful, I am definitely going to get what I want. On another note, wanting to get out of debt is not the same as wanting to be financially responsible and solvent.       

   I remember an incident in my early childhood about not getting what I wanted that relates to not wanting the right thing as well as violating all these other reality repair areas. I was in the kiddy seat of a grocery cart in our local A & P Grocery store in Haddon Heights, NJ where they used to put all the goodies up high on shelving above the food. I spotted a pair of shiny silver six guns with white plastic handles and rich brown, intricately-designed holsters and belt that I just had to have worse than Ralphy wanted the Daisy Dual-Action BB gun in Christmas Story. I can still see those six-guns vividly.      

     So, I let my mother know just how much I wanted those guns in more of a loud tirade than a humble request. That’s what kids usually do. Of course my answer was not what I wanted to hear:  “Billy you can have all the guns you want when you turn twenty-one.” Oddly, when I was 19 years old and in a fox hole over in Vietnam, I had quite an arsenal that would impress the best-equipped NRA members. Many years later I realized I did get what I wanted, but just not exactly what, how and when I wanted it!  A good lesson in reality repair that actually took half a century to learn. But a pre-explanation probably wouldn’t have helped speed up my learning. I have always been too big on doing it all by myself.   

ASKING FOR IT IN THE RIGHT WAY       

      These next two obstacles are very much interrelated. Both the timing and manner in which you ask for something contribute greatly to the results you get. There is always a right and wrong way to ask for what you want and only the right way at the right time gets the desired outcome. Demanding something you don’t deserve will not help you get what you want. Nor will wanting what you don’t have and not wanting what you do have or even asking for something legitimate at the wrong time. In praying or mediating, I don’t seek to be relieved of troublesome burdens, pains or discomforts but rather the smarts to see the best solutions myself and the needed stamina and tenacity to carry them out.       

     A valuable success clue is knowing when to change your approach when you keep asking for something over and over again and don’t get it.  And of course, once you learn the proper way to ask for what you want, the slightest trace of negative expectation in your mind and voice will give you away; that is not the right way to ask for what you want. Being totally positive is what brings you and what you want closer together.   

BEING SENSITIVE TO RIGHT TIMING        

    I read somewhere that time was nature’s way to keep the good things from happing all at once. I think it is beneficial to see it that way even if it may not be completely accurate. In a recent exciting Fiesta Bowl game finish, the quarterback for the underdog Boise State football team seemed to have blown the game in the last few seconds and assured himself as a lifetime bad memory in history by throwing an interception that went for touchdown. Over 59 minutes of a spectacular effort on top of a 12-0 season was on the verge of not counting for anything.       

    Seconds later, the quarterback became a lifetime good memory for everyone by stepping up to the plate and redeeming himself twice against all odds opposing a strong Oklahoma team that would just not let up. It was all a matter of good timing—realizing the right time to sneak in a razzle-dazzle unconventional last second play and understanding the near fatal disappointment was just setting up the situation for an unforgettable successful win that won’t ever be forgotten in the history of football. Patience and the faith discussed below are valuable, good reality-producing virtues.   

LETTING GO AND BELIEVING YOU WILL GET IT        

     The most subtle but powerful way you can keep yourself from getting what you want is to be unaware of the negative doubts you are having about getting it. Getting what you want requires complete positive faith that you will get it; if you don’t it is just because you may not be aware of how you may be engaging in these other three obstacles. The slightest doubt will build a mountain out of a molehill and you will surely end up empty-handed and frustrated. This is one of the few areas in life where temperance will get in your way: It is all or nothing. Total faith or none at all.      

     How did the Boise State quarterback in the 2007 Fiesta bowl get what he wanted? He wanted the right thing, made his best effort to get it in the right way at the right time and then the whole team believed totally in getting the successful win and got it. Everything gelled. And that is the whole story. Pretty simple when you stop to think about, and it is just a right mix of not being free or costing too much. What realities of yours need repairing? What are you resisting?  

William Cottringer, Ph.D. is President of Puget Sound Security in Bellevue, WA. He is author of You Can Have Your Cheese & Eat It Too and The Bow-Wow Secrets; both books deal with the art and science of getting what you want. He can be reached for comments and questions at (425) 454-5011 or bcottringer@pssp.net