A Healthy Respect for Reality

“One of the signs of maturity is a healthy respect for reality—a respect that manifests itself in the level of one’s aspirations and in the accuracy of one’s assessment of the difficulties which separate the facts of today from the bright hopes of tomorrow.”

~Robert H. Davies.

A state of poise and balance it is that sees us seeing with right perspective. All our lives perhaps we’re striving for such poise and balance.

Separation is a Key

We cannot verily live in good conscience, in the midst of our difficulties, if we’re not honest with ourselves. And, yet, a rigorous honesty gets us few better places but unbridled and caged anxiety at times. The former mistake is denial; the latter is an improper or imbalanced focus.

As we hold dual realities in tension—the truth that subsists now, and our hopes for the future—separating and delineating them—we find an awesome truth prevails over our spirits.

This sort of separation is engendering a prevalence, and a preference, for reality—the world’s generally-accepted perspective that we might ordinarily shun.

Wisdom - An Acceptance of Reality

Per the Serenity Prayer, when we accept the things we cannot change, but equally when we have the courage to change the things we can, we demonstrate the wisdom to live the tension between the two.

This is the discharge of our vital reality.

Whenever we’re advancing on those things within our influence, whilst leaving well enough alone, we’re straddling the cusp of our reality with great skill. Indeed, we can be assured that this is the establishment of God’s will for us.

Hope in the Clouds and Faith on the Ground

Our core reality is remaining safely planted with feet on the floor whilst having an equally safe half-eye on the future hopes to which we’re called.

But we can’t afford to merge both these realities or we get confused and frustrated very quickly. We mix in hope for what we presently don’t have and we lose our perspective for what gets us there. It diminishes our faith.

Like juggling two balls with confidence, we keep both our hope for tomorrow and our faith for today safely in the air.

Our hope is never in defeat that way. It’s always ultimately set apart. It’s precious to us and it needs to be held and valued as sacrosanct.

© 2010 S. J. Wickham.