One trendy belief system these days is that by pretending to be something, you become it with time. The mentality is that you can be happy or confident if you pretend you are and believe your fiction until it becomes reality.

This idea is best captured in the pervasive “Fake it, till you make it” mantra.

According to this funny belief system, you could laugh away your sorrows, stand up to your challenges, dare to do things you are afraid of, all merely by pretending. All you need to do is pretend you are already in that state. And boom! You will soon become the person of your dreams.

Well, I’m about to stick a pin in this ludicrous balloon before it goes any further or flies any higher.

Why you should stop wishing

Problems don't go away because you wish them to. Issues don't disappear just because you wish they did. If that was the case, we wouldn't need to do any work. We wouldn't need to make any efforts. Share on X

We would just sleep in our beds, fold our arms and wish things into reality. We wouldn’t have to go to work. But that’s not the case because wishes are just what they are: wishes. Nothing more.

Your challenges don’t go away by you pretending to move on, by you assuming you are better off when you don’t think about them, by veining a solution you don’t have.

Wake up from that reverie of the possibility of wishing things away. It’s a lazy way of trying to dodge the harsh truth of having to face reality.

It’s like imagining you have $30bn in your bank account when all you have is the minimum balance. The reality is that you are not rich even if you pretend to be for months or years.

Reality is harsh. But forced false hope is harsher. Attempting to wish your problems away will only land you in bigger problems.

To pretend something does not exist does not make it not exist, and to wish something that’s non-existing exists does not make it exist.

Do this instead of wishing

If you want to be happy, face and defeat your sorrows. If you want to be confident, address your timidity. If you want to be rich, find ways to break free of poverty. If you want success, put in the work.

Einstein once said: “Nothing happens until something moves.” It’s one of the fundamental laws of the universe and there are NO exceptions to it.

You have to do to become. And mind you, wishing doesn't qualify as doing. Wishing is what it is – wishing. Nothing stems out of ordinary wishing. Wishing all by itself is null. Share on X

Until wishes graduate into desires, they don’t materialise into anything tangible. A desire differs markedly from a wish.

The proof of desire is pursuit. If you desire something, you pursue it until you achieve it.

You won’t achieve anything by pretending you have achieved it. No! It doesn’t work that way. It never did and it never will.

Even in magic, you can’t just wish things into reality. You have to chant a spell or use magical potions for things to happen.

Germination cannot occur when no seed is in the ground. Even for miracles to happen, something must be done.

You can't wish money into your bank account. You can't become happy or healthy by pretending to be. You can only make things happen through real, deliberate efforts. No buts or maybes. No exceptions. Share on X

Make no mistake. I’m not speaking against envisioning your future while striving towards it. That’s a necessary prerequisite for attaining success. What I’m against is the crass idea that you can wish your lofty dreams into reality.

 

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