Hello there,
An interesting quote from a recent book called The Scout Mindset by Julia Galef has grabbed my interest. The quote syas and I quote:
“The ability to see things as they are, not as we wish they were, is the most valuable skill of all.”
The quote was quite interesting to me because it simply advises against lying to yourself. Despite the bunch of words put together to develop a well-constructed sentence, I still wonder about the main message, as not lying to oneself. This information alone helps me understand what the book has to say about the quote, for better comprehension, and not to develop knowledge based solely on my personal understanding with zero facts. And you should know from my book reviews by now that all it takes is a quote to get me interested in a book.
As I predicted, the book is about not lying to oneself and seeing things for what they are. It does not matter what it is. You have to understand and see what the underlying fact is. The world is not a place made of a bed of roses where everyone can get a piece of it, or a place where wishes come true simply because you made those wishes. The book goes further to explain to the reader that having a notion that the world will be kind to you simply because it is you that is the person involved is nothing but a recipe for problems. It can be harmful to oneself when they fail to see things for what they are, but ratherchoosese to see what they want to see or what they hope to see. Therefore brught about the fact that having the ability to see things for what they are is a valuable skill.
This is not all the book is about, but it builds the parameters for the notion of the scout mindset, which is different from the soldier mindset. The soldier is built on the spectacle of being defensive, seeking a defensive approach and attitude towards the problem, while the scout mindset is about being observant, asking questions, and learning for the purpose of wanting to understand the truth. The scout mindset operates on the purpose of finding out the truth and not for arguing or wanting to be right. This is what the author of the book drives towards that brought about quotes like the one highlighted at the start of this article.
A big reality check from the book comes from knowing that reality is not about wishes. You cannot make wishes, and it all comes to pass without you working towards achieving it. It is not about running from your problem, ignoring it, or acting like it does not exist at all that makes it go away. Rather, you have to see it for what it is, and that is a problem. What do you do about problems? You provide solutions. This way, one is seeing it for what it is and not what they wish it were.
An understanding of this concept will avoid a lot of problems before they arrive, which means, in the end, it is all about not lying to oneself. You have to be straightforward with one person, and that person is you.
I am 
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Thanks For Reading!