Castles in the air, ruins on the ground

Enthusiasm is very important to motivate us to meet our goals. However, when this is excessively unrealistic, or when we do not do enough to launch the projects, frustration begins. We reflect a little on the illusions below.

You cannot live without illusion, but it is not possible to live only from it. Having dreams is having a motor, an impulse to move forward. Dreams are like guiding stars, which shine and show us the way. Dreams translate into projects and projects into plans. Thus, what at a given moment is a dream, with patience and perseverance becomes a reality.

The problem is that Some people dwell on the illusion, but do very little to make it a reality.. And if they do, they use a wrong methodology that prevents them from achieving those objectives that they so passionately desire.

“How little it costs to build castles in the air and how expensive their destruction is!”

-François Mauriac-

Making castles in the air is designing in your imagination that state you want to reach. We all do it sometimes: when we fall in love and visualize ourselves holding hands with that person in autumn ages. When we go to our first day of work and the promotion we are going to receive crosses our mind. When we start saving and fantasies of ourselves spending large sums of money on a paradisiacal beach appear.

It is very normal to make castles in the air and live in them for a while. Until then, everything is very good. But, What happens when we settle in those castles and we no longer want to leave there? When all those great dreams only correspond to a harsh reality, very different, and which we do not deal with?

Read Also: How can I help my partner overcome grief? 5 keys

Building castles in the air

It is not necessary to have great achievements to live in a castle in the air. What defines these imaginary constructions is not their size, but their unreality.. You can, for example, simply inhabit the fantasy of getting a wonderful partner, a type of “redeemer” of existence.

Who hasn’t dreamed about it? Who hasn’t ever wanted that special person to appear, totally different from the others, and take us to that state of “happiness” that we have always dreamed of? Who hasn’t? Have you ever thought that there really is such a thing as “they lived happily ever after”?

In the contemporary world there are some fantasies that many do not want to give up.. One of them is the fantasy of “redemptive love”, to which we refer. But in addition, ideals also flourish around money, success, fame, happiness, consumption.

Many people, to a greater or lesser extent, They assume that “happiness” is in that ideal of life that is so promoted: stable and wonderful couple, promising and exultant work, free and extensive consumption, foolproof social recognition, constant tranquility.

Although we don’t actually know anyone who has achieved all of this, we assume that there really are many who live like this. That others are doing very well and that we are the ones who have not had the good fortune to achieve all those ideals of life. Maybe because of our dysfunctional family, or our insecurity, or simply bad luck.

Castles in the air do not collapse: they disappear

If something defines the neurotic, it is precisely this conviction that others are fine and that only he has problems.. That the shortcomings, contradictions and paradoxes of life are something that can be resolved forever, with a little effort and dedication. It does not seem possible to them that errors, gaps and fractures in relationships are factors that naturally make up everyone’s life. No. According to them, all that could be overcome.

Read Also: 7 therapeutic metaphors that will help us understand everything better

That’s why The neurotic is obsessed in search of “the recipe for happiness”. Sometimes it seems like he finds it in religion, in a self-help book, or in the practice of some form of self-improvement philosophy.

The castle in the air where the neurotic lives is the ideal of a fully harmonious world.. That is why life goes from disappointment to disappointment.

When they realize that their pink princess, or their prince charming, are not redemption, but an unsolvable problem. Someone who does not love them, nor reciprocate their affection 100% and at all times. Someone who makes mistakes and gets angry, when others don’t see it.

When the work doesn’t make them millionaires and they don’t receive a little gold star every time they do it well. When at the end of the month, the accounts make them think that they should earn more and that, in reality, for so much that the market offers, there is not enough money.

When an athletic body with well-toned muscles produces rather fleeting joys. When, finally, they realize that physical and emotional pain is something that all human beings must deal with, no matter how beautiful we are, or the recognition we have obtained, or how much effort we put into achieving success. .

Perhaps we would be much happier if we understood that happiness itself is a very relative concept.. That there is no state of absolute plenitude and that if we sometimes manage to experience complete bliss, it does not last long. It is nice to dream of perfection, but even nicer not to lose sight of the fact that it is an ideal, therefore, unattainable.

Read Also: 4 benefits of writing by hand

If we do not give up living in those castles in the air, we will most likely feel constantly unhappy. Disappointed at not being able to materialize those impossible fantasies. We will feel that ours are only ruins and we will lose sight of the fact that, in reality, The great wonder of existence is knowing that even with limitations, you can always be a little better.