| | A similar idea from Nathaniel Branden (my paraphrase) - "You may have little choice in what life presents you, but a great deal of choice in how you will experience it."
And, from Aldous Huxley, "Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him."
I see them all as living in the real world which means letting go of negative emotions or futile wishes or hopeless daydreams about your current condition - issues of self-acceptance and living consciously - and then acting assertively both in the external world, and in choosing to experience life in its most realistically positive fashion.
Branden talked one day about having made a commitment to fly to Mexico City to deliver an address at a major university, but weeks later, when he found himself on the plane his first thought was, "Why did I agree to do this, this isn't where I want to be going or what I want to do right now." Then he had the thought, "It makes no sense to attempt to change what I'm going to be doing the next few days, and it makes no sense to focus on not wanting to be here... The choice I do have is how much enjoyment I can have." (Caveat: This is my memory of his words from a few decades ago.)
That might have been the time I heard him say that in the long run, he wanted to learn to play his consciousness like a musical instrument.
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Each player must accept the cards life deals him or her: but once they are in hand, he or she alone must decide how to play the cards in order to win the game.
