Your ego’s lying to you right now.
Mine did too, back when I sat in my advisor’s office trying to explain how a 4.0 student could get an F in Probability. “I didn’t need to go to class,” I told her, believing every word. “I could just read the textbook.“
Narrator: That worked out exactly as well as you’d expect.
The Two Realities We’re All Living In
Here’s what nobody tells you about failure: It’s not the crash that kills your dreams. It’s the stories you tell yourself while you’re falling. The comfortable lies that keep you from seeing what’s really happening until it’s almost too late.
Think of it like this: Your ego’s created a map of how things should work. You know all those ancient explorers who wrote “here be dragons” on the edges of their maps when they didn’t know what was actually there? Your ego does the same thing with reality, filling in the unknown with comfortable stories instead of uncomfortable truths.
We’re all living in two realities right now. The first one? It’s the movie your ego’s directing, where you’re always the misunderstood hero.
Where that job rejection was their loss, where your relationship problems are all their fault, where you totally crushed that presentation despite the awkward silence afterward.
The second reality? That’s the actual territory – the one where things really happen.
Where results live. Where change is possible.
But here’s the kicker: When these two realities don’t match, your brain doesn’t rush to fix the map. Instead, it works overtime to ignore the territory.
Psychologists call this cognitive dissonance – that uncomfortable feeling when your beliefs crash into contradicting evidence. But I call it the reality gap. And that gap between your ego’s map and reality’s territory? That’s where dreams go to die.
When Reality Hits Like a Freight Train
I learned this the hard way, watching my full scholarship slip through my fingers because my ego wouldn’t let me admit I was drowning in that Probability class. Every failed test was just another opportunity to double down on my story: “I don’t need class. I’ve got this.”
The first test came back with a D. No problem, I thought. Just a warm-up. I’ll crush the next one.
Second test: F. Still, my ego had an explanation. The professor clearly wasn’t teaching it right. Besides, when would I ever need to calculate probability in real life?
Third test? I didn’t even show up. Why bother? I had convinced myself the whole class was broken, not my approach to it.
Then that final grade hit my transcript like a wrecking ball through my ego’s perfect glass house. That F wasn’t just a grade. It wasn’t even just about my scholarship. It was reality breaking through every story I’d been telling myself about how smart I was, how special, how different from everyone else who “needed” to go to class.
And suddenly I had a choice: Keep believing my own press and lose everything, or admit that maybe – just maybe – I wasn’t as brilliant as my ego wanted me to believe.
Know what’s worse than admitting you’re wrong? Watching your future evaporate because you were too proud to admit it sooner.
The Moment Everything Changed
My counselor gave me one shot at keeping my scholarship. Two summer classes: Financial Accounting and Macroeconomics. Two subjects I knew nothing about. But this time, something was different.
This time, I shut up and showed up. Front row. Every class. Taking notes like my future depended on it – because it did. For the first time, I stopped trying to be right and started trying to get it right.
The result? Two A’s. Not because I got smarter. But because I finally started living in the second reality – the one where results come from what you actually do, not what you think you should be able to do.
The Truth About Getting Better
Here’s the truth about improvement: It only happens in that second reality. The one your ego’s trying to protect you from. The one where that job rejection might actually be about your interview skills, not their bad taste. Where your relationship might need your change, not just your partner’s. Where your presentation might actually need work, despite what your mom says.
Freud nailed it when he said the ego “fights with a double front: against the external world and against the desires of others.” But here’s what he missed: Your ego’s not trying to hurt you. It’s actually trying to keep you safe, like it did for our cave-dwelling ancestors when “safe” meant “don’t try anything new or you’ll get eaten.”
Problem is, your ego’s still running that ancient survival software in a world where not changing is the real threat.
The Signs You’re Living in Ego’s Fantasy
I see it everywhere. That LinkedIn post from the PhD who applied to 150 jobs with no success, blaming the market instead of questioning their approach. Their ego telling them “keep doing the same thing, it’s not your fault” while reality’s screaming “change something – anything!”
What would have happened if they’d faced reality after 30 rejections instead of 150? If they’d asked “what am I missing?” instead of “why aren’t they seeing my brilliance?”
Your Wake-Up Call
Here’s your wake-up call: The gap between your ego’s reality and actual reality is where you’re losing your dreams. Every day you spend believing comfortable lies is a day you’re not building the life you actually want.
The path forward isn’t comfortable. It requires looking at things your ego doesn’t want you to see. Changing things it’s trying to protect. Admitting truths it’s been hiding.
The Revolution Waiting in Reality
But here’s what makes it worth it: Reality is where all the good stuff happens. Where you actually get better, not just think you should be better. Where relationships actually improve, not just wish they would. Where success actually happens, not just feels like it should.
Your move: What story is your ego telling you right now? And what would happen if you looked past it to see what’s really there?
Because that gap between your two realities? That’s not just where dreams die.
It’s also where revolutions begin.