Idealism Is Not Realism

Learn to settle for less than perfect, in this life.  Some would argue, "Never settle for less than the best". That sounds good but it is a futile pursuit if "the best" is an unrealistic dream. Yes, Hollywood portrays perfect marriages, perfect families, perfect people but none of those "actors" are what they portray and usually even worse than average.  Life is not perfect. People are not perfect. Absolutely nothing is perfect except God Himself.  All else we can hear, see, smell or touch, is less than perfect, less than ideal, faulty in some respect. 

If you do not learn to be content with the reality of imperfection, you will never be content.  If you cannot rest with your imperfections and still strive to do your very best, anyway, you will wear yourself out and everyone around you.  Idealism is not realism.  It is good to have high standards, hopes, dreams and goals above and beyond the average.  But do not give up and quit trying to be more and better than you are when reality slaps you in the face.  Every day, settle for real improvement, inches of progress, and small gains in who you are or where you are going.  the key to success, happiness and spiritual growth is to be aimed in the right direction and to keep moving, never stopping advancement ... though in small, baby steps.  You can accomplish the unimaginable, not by rushing the brick wall or running up the mountain of challenge, but by one small, baby step at a time and never stopping, never giving up.


Trying to perfect the world is an idealist's folly.  Thinking you can perfect yourself or anyone else, assures a miserable life for yourself and everyone you love.  The do-gooder dream of social and economic equality is a Socialistic nightmare.  Eliminating a "problem pregnancy" does not solve the problem, it compounds it.  Dissatisfaction is a human characteristic which, if not channeled toward progress, ends in the loss of the good and real things in life.

"Someone take care of me" begins at birth, but if not weaned from that nipple, morphs from a spoiled brat into a selfish egoist,  into a self centered sociopath, into a  free stuff Socialist, into a  despotic Communist.

Politicians who dream of perfection for all, spend their city, state or nation into total bankruptcy while making every imperfect thing more and more imperfect. Idealism is not realism.

Preachers who preach perfection, in the flesh, grow from youthful idealists into hypocrites, into false prophets, into hindrances to the cause of Christ and obstacles in the way of Salvation. 

We must not accommodate sin or make peace with lies,  but we must settle for imperfection by embracing reality, truth and forgiveness.

Be all you can be, but do not seek to be an impossible ideal.  You might as well accept your humanity .... You cannot escape it.... though pressing on the upward way.

Real improvement in  the outer man, human flesh, is minimal at best. The only real  change and improvement, in our humanity, must be upon the inner man, our eternal spirit, and that, only through faith in Christ and by Him, as we seek Him. RB

"But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." 2Cor.3:18. Real change and real hope are in spiritual growth.



Shakespear's Polonius to his son:

This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.