Do you live life trying to create an end result?
Do you find yourself constantly trying to accomplish a “utopian ideal” of how things are supposed to be?
Relationship, sex, sexuality, family, and the future are examples of conceptual constructs. The perfect partner is a construct. Culture, religion, and reputation are constructs. Society itself is a construct.
These things are not actually real; they are conceptual realities that have been dropped into our existence.
The Problem With Constructs
At some point, we give up our awareness in order to achieve this perfect ideal. We accept the notion that being normal, average, real – and just like everybody else – is the best and only way to be. Don’t live life trying to make everything look the way it’s “supposed” to.
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The problem with conceptual constructs is that they put you into conflict with yourself at every turn. Wherever you feel conflicted with yourself, you’re trying to do or be something that society wants rather than just being you.
Most people have a fixed idea of how things are supposed to be, rather than functioning in the moment, where they can change anything as needed to accomplish and create more.
What if you could create more than you ever imagined? What if there was a different possibility for you than merely what society expects?
Each person has one to seven utopian concepts that are the source for the way they create their life…and are preventing them from living their best life. The concepts are different for each person, but these are some of the most pervasive.
Thoughts You Need To Stop Thinking
1. “I must find ‘The One.’”
Are you looking for the “perfect” person for you? This means you have to sit in judgment of them and in judgment of you. Does that create a great relationship? No.
Utopian concepts are anything but practical and workable. All of them are based on the illusion that if you give up your awareness, you can have a great relationship.
Related: 5 Steps To Attracting Your Perfect Partner (Even If You’re Very, Very Single)
Look at the people you choose to be with and see whether they expand your life. Generally speaking, because of the utopian ideals you buy, you tend to choose people who never make you go beyond the limitations of where you currently exist—who don’t help you to grow.
It doesn’t have to be this way when you are willing to look at possibilities, choices, questions, and contribution – because all of a sudden, you will realize, “This person is not a sufficient contribution to my life. This person is contributing to my control, limitation, maintenance, and contraction. This relationship is not creating what I’d like to create.”
Once you realize this, you can choose not to do that anymore. I invite you to stop focusing on the “perfect person” and instead choose people who contribute to the greatness of you, not people who make you less.
Related: 5 Signs You’re In An Unhealthy Relationship
2. “Someday, my ship will come in.”
This is the idea that someday you’ll be rich. Someday, it’s going to happen. You expect something great to occur, but you don’t do the things that would make great things occur.
Instead, start asking: “What do I have to do to create the riches I’d like to have?” Most people have ideas about how money should be, and they keep trying to buy into conceptual constructs of how money is created.
By and large, they believe money is created by work. But that’s not it. Money is created by request – not by work. Ask the question, “How can I earn ten times this amount of money doing something different and not working so hard?”
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3. “I can have a perfect life.”
The utopian ideal is, “If I take this construct and apply it to my life, my life will be perfect.” A “perfect life” doesn’t exist without society there to deem it perfect. What you could have instead is a life that is defies societal limitations.
What if you were no longer trying to fit into this reality? When you are functioning from choice, there is no wrong choice. It’s not about a right or wrong choice. It’s “Okay, what do I want to choose here and now?”
You have to learn to choose. You’ve spent your whole life trying to avoid choice. Society tells you, “No, no. Don’t choose that. You’ve got to choose the right thing. That’s the wrong choice. You shouldn’t have chosen that. Why didn’t you choose this other thing?”
Related: How To Take Charge Of Your Life And Stop Getting In Your Own Way
Everything is predicated on the idea that you must doubt every choice you made, because every choice you made that didn’t fit the conceptual construct of the utopian ideal was a wrong choice. There is no wrong choice.
4. “I will accomplish [goal] in [amount of time].”
People assume that somehow they will have enough time, even if they don’t. They work themselves to death.
Instead, what if you asked: “Do I have enough time to do this?” If not: “How can I accomplish this in a different way?”
“Time” is a conceptual construct you use to slow yourself down enough to fit into this reality. The construct of time slows you down to the point that you can’t accomplish all the things you would like.
Related: 9 Ways To Manage Time And Get Sh!t Done
If you were willing to lose the limitations of time, everything you did would happen with greater ease. When you’re willing to lose time as a construct of reality, when you don’t attempt to make time real, it doesn’t take time to accomplish things.
How To Break Away From Utopian Ideals
As long as you are buying into these ideals society has created, you cannot truly see what is. You only see what should happen that isn’t happening.
Though many believe there is some pre-ordained reality you’re supposed to be living in, that’s simply not the case.
The below questions will help you to pinpoint the utopian ideals in your life.
- How do I break the conceptual constructs and utopian ideals? Look at what’s real. Be pragmatic.
- What keeps me locked up? Conclusions. Looking for the right answer. What if there is no right or wrong? There is just choice. Choice will always give you freedom. Conclusion will always lock you up and put you in jail.
- What can I do about it? Live life in the question. Ask everyday: “What’s really possible here that I’ve never even considered?”
- Do I really need to “solidify” my future? The answer is no. Create your future. You do that with choice. Create your future by asking:
- What else is possible today?
- What else do I have to do today?
- What else can be created beyond this?
More than one option may come up when you ask these questions. To get more clarity, you can try these ones:
- Which one of these choices is going to create the life I’d like to have in five years?
- Is there a way to get these options to work together?
- What if we used both of these at different times?
- If I choose this, what will my life be like in five years?
- If I don’t choose this, what will my life be like in five years?
- What are the other options I haven’t considered?
These questions will give you a sense that there is always a different possibility. So you can create today the life you want to be living tomorrow.
Related: 3 Ways You Can Change Yourself Into The ‘You’ You Want To Be
The Takeaway
Your choices create the future. You make a choice today and that choice creates a cobweb of possibilities. Every time you choose something, at least ten different possibilities open up. Every choice slowly but surely leads you to the future you are capable of being. Live life for you.
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Gary Douglas is a best-selling author, psychologist and international speaker and a sought-after facilitator who inspires people to see different possibilities. Gary pioneered a set of transformational life changing tools and processes known as Access Consciousness 25 years ago. Gary has authored numerous books including Beyond The Utopian Ideal, Money Is Not the Problem You Are and Right Riches for You.
Photo by Joseph Maddon