My mother always told me that thoughts are things, and it took me a long time to understand what she meant. You’ve heard about the power of positive thinking and affirmations, and they do work. But today I want to talk about idealism, and how much of it is based on the reality of our lives.

A good definition of idealism from the dictionary is “the practice of forming or pursuing ideals, especially unrealistically.” Another definition is similar to the thoughts are things philosophy. But I’m talking about the one that deals in reality a little more than we’d like to believe.

I think one of the problems with idealism is when any ideal requires the participation of others. You’d have to scale it to a specific demographic and find others with similar goals, but that is what creates the other “isms” – patriotism, centrism, socialism, communism, feminism, etc. And when that happens, so does fragmentation. And we know that fragmentation causes dissension, wars, etc.

So how do you get utopia, peace on earth, etc.? Unfortunately, I can’t think of any way at the moment. But you can start with you.