Cheryl Ries

Dreams are what drive us to compose our lives, they make our lives rich with color, beauty, and motivate us forward like our own inherent propellers.  Reality, though, now that's a concept! 

I'm insistent in pointing out that the counter-balance to fantasy is reality.  Seems like that should be common sense, but many people live their entire lives wasting possibilities because they refuse to see the beauty and joy within reality.  It's filled with imperfection, so reality isn't going to be "picture perfect".  Reality, once faced, can be imperfectly idyllic.  When we open ourselves up to the imperfections of people, those we love, our families, our friends, our mates, we experience love at a different level.  When we let love grow past the reflection of those flaws of reality, jumping through the looking glass and into the realm of deeper things, we can find love is based and rooted much more substantially.  We are all imperfect . . . looking externally and internally, we have that in common.  It doesn't matter who you are, George Clooney, Nicole Kidman, Angelina Jolie or Brad Pitt . . . we humans are all commonly tied by our human imperfections, among other qualities.

Stating the obvious, we see imagery all the time which is close to perfection.  We see celebrities, movie stars, models, and athletes who seem to defy the real imperfect parameters the rest of us poor saps must live with.  They are glorious and radiate like luminous stars in some heavenly realm beyond our reach.  Truthfully, a great deal of what makes them so spectacular is not real.  It is the work of magicians . . . the squad of makeup artists, hairdressers, stylists, wardrobers, casting agents, trainers, plastic surgeons and clothing designers who have worked wonders transforming the physical "clay" of the human flesh.  Then add in the photographers, photo editiors, stylists, producers, and all those who are capable of taking photoshoots and commercials, films and promotional events to a new level through skillful manipulation of their talents upon the work in progress.  What we end up with is a lot of illusion, a world which emphasizes the perfect and idyllic!

Never fear, it is with maturity that you learn to grow through the stages of personal development which restrict a human being to that narrow space of appreciating only perfection!  With time, hopefully, if this is your issue, you can learn to find imperfections just as beautiful as what you interpret as perfect.  When you can look at the people whom you love and assess them as beautiful, even though they are imperfect, then you know your love is genuine!