Reality Based Living is a process of understanding and integrating various techniques, habits, and practices with a goal of maintaining a person's perceptions, emotions, and intellect, as nearly possible, in alignment with reality.
But what is reality? Reality is all which exists, as it exists. It is the source of every person's life and being. It is the source of our joys and our sorrows. From it, the evolved genetic information brings together the chemical elements that form our bodies. Out of it has developed the culture, tools and assets – physical, social, and technological – which frame and empower our interactions with every other aspect of reality.
The degree to which our choices and actions support and benefit (or harm and diminish) our lives depends upon our alignment with reality. That alignment, in turn, depends upon the degree to which our sensations, feelings, and thoughts correspond and are consistent with reality. It is from this that we make our choices and undertake our actions. By avoiding deliberate distortions of our senses, feelings, and thought processes, we can keep ourselves more accurately aligned with reality and maximize the benefits we can experience throughout our lives.
Choices and actions which decrease our alignment with reality not only reduce our possible benefits, they can jeopardize our lives and those of others. Life is a continuous process in which our bodies constantly interact with reality. If for any reason at any point the life process is severed, the overwhelming likelihood is that that life will no longer continue and will permanently cease to exist. When our sensory input, its interpretation, and/or our decision-making are distorted by any means causing them to be misaligned with reality, we increase the chances that our choices and actions may interrupt and irrecoverably cause the cessation of our life or the lives of others.
On a brighter note, we can remember a quote from the late Rev. Jesse Jackson who said: "The real world is here for you to enjoy, but only if you are a part of it and not apart from it."
For whom is Reality Based Living's intended?
- Since everybody exists as a part of the real physical universe and everyone is bound by the properties of their physical existence, Reality Based Living can be applicable for each and every person, regardless of their philosophy or belief system, or whether they have no commitment or leaning toward any religious doctrine.
- Reality Based Living is for those of any age who have either not yet engaged in the pursuit of deliberate distortions or now recognize the need to set such pursuits aside and who can benefit from an understanding and practices that can give them added strength to withstand the pressures which would have them jeopardize their alignment with reality.
- Reality Based Living is especially intended for youth who may find themselves pushed by negative peer pressures. However, it should also be helpful for anybody who recognizes their need to stop, or is simply questioning whether they should stop, distorting their senses, feelings, and/or thinking – whether their distortions are from the use of psychotropic substances or result from anything else.