Danger of Being Attached to the Illusion
Wanting to believe that risks don't exist for you, like they do for other people
We want to believe in something, someone — or both — so badly sometimes, that we put ourselves at great risk. We become more likely to feel that there won’t be danger, that we can’t and won’t be harmed and our well-being won’t take a painful hit.
That’s problematic. Yet it’s how we can, at least at times, navigate decision making.
I’m going to share some comments from an attorney, a divorce lawyer, to illustrate this truism yet this reputation brief is not about marriage and divorce. It’s about life in general, the different and complex situations we experience, the decisions we make and don’t make and the potential problems we downplay or ignore.
Please hang with me.
James J. Sexton is an attorney with an Instagram account made up mostly of videos in which he provides advice about relationships. In one of his more recent videos, he made a comment about prenuptial agreements.
He talked about the smarts of having important conversations about them and having such an agreement, because as much as we believe we know about the future, we don’t have as much foresight as we think.
Sexton says that we won’t even consider these conversations about protection, like we do with seeing the doctor or doing maintenance on our cars, and how it is unwise.
“Why wouldn’t you allow me to have a table that just says if you’d like to have a prenup… have you thought of a prenup? (People) wouldn’t even let me in the room, because it shatters the illusion,” Sexton said. “It’s reality. They don’t like reality.”
A little later, he elaborated on his point.
“I think people would prefer to look at the bright side of things and to be optimistic,” Sexton said. “We can’t have an honest conversation and be optimistic?”
Let’s briefly look at two of his points, in a general nature, not specific to the subject matter about which he was talking.
When Sexton argues that people don’t like their illusions shattered, this can hold true in different situations and areas of our life. Idealism feels good and is not a negative in of itself yet we can get to the point where we believe so strongly in our trust and conclusions that we ignore, dismiss or deny very real dangers.
Have people ever been terribly injured or died from attempting to do too much in daring feats, whether in nature or in our vehicles or thrill-seeking sports? Yes. They didn’t believe things would go sideways or worse for them.
Have we ever spoken in a manner that we thought was necessary, feeling we’d be ok and it turned out we suffered great loss because of it? What about business overconfidence? Or gambling? Or rolling the dice in relationships?
All this too is having the illusion shattered, which we rarely like and accept. Our brains prefer the dopamine of positive emotions, trust and confidence.
Sexton is reasonable when he offers this up for thought:
“We can’t have an honest conversation and be optimistic?”
The two can co-exist. Being honest with ourselves and others isn’t always easy yet it is important and can be protective and valuable.
I too haven’t wanted particular “illusions” to be shattered. I kept believing in what I trusted in different situations and professional and personal relationships. You have likely had similar outcomes in your life. I came to learn the painful way because my mind and thinking had moved too far away from the shore of reality.
When we can bring ourselves to pause, breathe and question our conclusions, retain some degree of optimism and yet be honest and realistic about (negative) possibility or likely problems that we don’t want, we benefit.
If we can associate positive emotions and feelings of safety, more so than the “illusions” of what would make us happy, then we are more likely to suffer less.
Michael Toebe is a reputation and communications specialist at Reputation Intelligence and writes the Reputation Intelligence newsletter here on Substack and on LinkedIn. He helps individuals and organizations proactively and responsively with matters of trust, stakeholder relationships and reputation.
He has been a reporter for newspapers and radio, hosted a radio talk show, written for online business magazines, been a media source, helped people work through disputes, conflicts and crises and assisted clients with communications to further build, protect, restore and reconstruct reputation. LinkedIn profile.
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