{"id":15,"date":"2007-01-06T20:10:27","date_gmt":"2007-01-07T02:10:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sashen.com\/blog\/15\/act-as-if-as-if\/"},"modified":"2007-01-06T20:10:52","modified_gmt":"2007-01-07T02:10:52","slug":"act-as-if-as-if","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sashen.com\/blog\/15\/act-as-if-as-if\/","title":{"rendered":"Act “as if”… as if!"},"content":{"rendered":"

First of all, my apologies for the long gap in my postings… I got on such a roll with Amazing Magical Clothing (now at www.Delightenment.com<\/a>) that I lost track of blog-time.
\nOkay, now onto something that makes me want to scream…<\/p>\n

This weekend I ran into an old favorite of the transformation biz: “Act as if” (otherwise known as “fake it ’til you make it”).<\/p>\n

The premise, not too surprisingly, is simple… wait, that’s not fair… let me try again.<\/p>\n

The premise, like most transformational theories, is ridiculously simple-minded.<\/p>\n

This one: If you want to be rich, you need to “act as if you’re rich.” Act as if long enough and you will have to get what you want!<\/p>\n

Go test drive expensive cars, wear better clothes, eat better food… and you will eventually become rich enough to do these things for real … that’s the idea, at lest. A variation of “vibration\/magnetism\/attraction.”<\/p>\n

And, as Lao Tzu once said, “Insane in the membrane!”<\/p>\n

Now, I’m not going to address the issue of wanting to control the universe to get what we want, let’s just look at the technique itself and watch it fall apart, shall we?<\/p>\n

Simply look to your own life to check this one out. Think of something you wanted to attain that you, in fact, *did* eventually get. Is the reality of having it even REMOTELY like what you imagined it would be? Was your first time having sex like you thought it would be? How ’bout the prom? Owning a house? Having however much money you have? Being with that dreamboat (or in Boulder, dreamkayak)?<\/p>\n

If you picked an example where the result seems close to how you thought it would be, try 2 things:<\/p>\n

1) Realize that we tend to manipulate our memories to fit our theories (read How We Know What Isn’t So<\/a>)
\n2) Look for more examples and see which you have more of: eventualities that match your prior imagination, or a list “I really thought I’d be richer, thinner, better looking and having more sex” stories?<\/p>\n

Even if the result was pleasant (which you wanted), it’s not like what you imagined.<\/p>\n

It’s one of my favorite things, finding people who’ve attained big goals and asking, “So, is it like what you thought it would be?” The answer, but only every time I’ve asked, is, “Not even close.”
\nWe simply can’t act as if we’re in some imagined future because we don’t have the ability to imagine well enough or act well enough. Hell, people who act as if for a living — actors — suck most of the time!<\/p>\n

In fact, if you ever get a chance, go watch an acting class where the students are doing improvisation as themselves, not by putting on a character. What you’ll see is this: We can’t even “act as if” when we’re acting like US and we’re pretending it’s NOW!<\/p>\n

If you really think you can “act as if”, try this experiment: replace your favorite dessert with dog poo and enjoy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

First of all, my apologies for the long gap in my postings… I got on such a roll with Amazing Magical Clothing (now at www.Delightenment.com) that I lost track of blog-time. Okay, now onto something that makes me want to scream… This weekend I ran into an old favorite of the transformation biz: “Act as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-psychology","category-self-improvement"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sashen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sashen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sashen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sashen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sashen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/sashen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sashen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sashen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sashen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}