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Here, "reality" is just shorthand for "what you can't fight". So if you can fight it, it wasn't really reality, now was it? Determining whether a given situati
by joe_the_user 5y ago
Here, "reality" is just shorthand for "what you can't fight". So if you can fight it, it wasn't really reality, now was it?
Determining whether a given situation can be changed or just needs to be accepted is a difficult challenge, one where there's not absolute formulas.
The main thing in these discussions is bosses or higher bosses tend to demand results regardless of the challenge of a situation. And oppositely, underlings often ask constantly for exceptions. So the word "reality" is great as rhetoric for justifying those things you can't or just don't want to change. Which to say all this discussion about how things should be framed and very little is "reality-reality", how the world is, since that's complex and difficult to be certain of. IE, saying "that's just reality" a good tactic to get out of tough binds.
- ironmagma 5y agoAnother way to say it is that leaders know what to fight and what not to fight. This is why doers will always be the best leaders; what better way to know what's reasonable in a practice than by practicing it yourself?
- lisper 5y agoA better way to phrase it would have been: "You cannot bend reality to your will simply by denying that it is what it is at the moment." (c.f. the manager who bellowed "I will not accept this forecast!") But that's not nearly as catchy a slogan as "you can't fight reality" notwithstanding that the latter is, as you point out, a vacuous tautology. For better or worse, part of current reality is that people are more attracted to catchy slogans than to nuanced truths, and so choosing to use the slogan is actually an example of employing the underlying advice.
- atoav 5y ago"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." ― Philip K. Dick, I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon