Is your perception of reality an illusion? speech

TOPIC: is your perception of reality an illusion?

PURPOSE: to create thoughts/feelings in my audience

“Humankind cannot bear very much reality.” well at least that’s what T.S. Eliot tried to convince us. However, because this statement contradicts the perception of reality in our minds, we try to protect ourselves and our misconceptions while denying the accusations, believing he is the person creating an illusion rather than our own minds. So is our perception of reality, in fact, an illusion?People feel as if they need these illusions in their life to run away from the reality that they have been trying to ignore and put behind them. Our generation is constantly trying to hide the raw truth behind a curtain of illusion and deceit. They feel that by putting up a wall, they can block out any kind of reality from putting pressure on their lives. By having the option to distort reality, people feel as if they have control of events around them even though it’s only twisting the truth. It’s like when Donald Trump said he wanted to build a wall between America and Mexico, all he was doing was hiding a problem behind a wall. He wasn’t confronting the issue, he just wanted it to not affect him. With a wall in place, the problem would still be occurring but he was so tangled up in his illusion that he won’yt care what happens outside his bubble.But this can actually give confidence and comfort to a person if they can’t handle the many stresses of the real world. It gives a form of a shelter where people can create a preferred outcome where they can pretend everything is alright. I don’t know why people think that if they separate themselves from all the messed up episodes, our world becomes a safe and happy place. In New Zealand, 83% of people claim they are satisfied with their lives, rating a 7 or above on a scale of 1 to 10. However, we will never know if people are truely happy due to the illusions they put in place over reality, as it has become an unconscious decision people can no longer control.  Possibly people who are unsatisfied with their life or are constantly competing with mental illness may be the only ones who can see through their illusion; their perception of reality could be clear. Maybe they struggle to form an illusion, resulting in them seeing all the imperfections in everything that everyone else decides to stay oblivious to.To many people, they form illusions to cause a diversion, they have to distort reality to be able to only see what they want. And people put in so much effort to stick to their illusions even though it contradicts reality. Peoples perceptions of reality blind them of the truth, we have all just learned to build an alternate world around us that we can tolerate.Because Charles Swindoll once said that life is 10% what happens to you and the other 90%, is how you decide to react. So why do we react and put up this illusion of a perfect world when “we cannot change our past, we cannot change the fact that people act in a certain way? We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have and that is our attitude.”

1. T.S. Eliot: “Humankind cannot bear very much reality,”
2. people feel like they need illusions in their life to run away from reality
3. illusion gives confidence
4. satisfaction vs mental illness
5. used as a diversion and is a delusion to the unwanted and the rejected truth
6. your perception is the illusion
7. we stick to the illusions although it contradicts reality 
8. acknowledging reality: we have never been able to accept reality for what it is we have just learned to build an alternate world around us that we can tolerate.