One of our biggest difficulties in life is when we assume that reality should meet our preconceived expectations. These expectations are usually based on our desires, past experiences, worldviews, culture, groups to which we belong, and the images, identities, or other stories that we have created in our minds (our ego self). When reality fails to meet our expectations, our ego self suffers and we may experience emotional and psychological anxiety, stress, discontent, or other trauma.
For example, if your standing on the beach watching a beautiful sunset, you are contented and probably wouldn't try to change the reality of that moment, to make it something different than what it is. You would accept it without judgment or thought, surrender to it, and enjoy the gift for what it is.
What happens, however, if your ego starts thinking about a time, many years ago, when you were at a beach with someone you cared deeply about, but that person did not have the same feelings for you, and your relationship ended? Instead of enjoying the beauty of the gift of the present moment, you continue to focus on that thought of that past moment, and your ego self begins to spew forth a stream of other thoughts, one after another, such as "How could she not care for me like I cared for her? I gave myself to her. How selfish she was. Imagine the life we could have had. I'm so lonely now. I hope she's suffering for what she did to me. Why did I come to this crummy beach in the first place?" Which "moment" would you rather experience?
Or consider another example. What happens if you are driving your car and another car cuts in front of you. That’s the reality of that moment. Can you accept that this moment of reality is past and let it go? Or does your mind begin to automatically create a stream of thoughts, such as "I can't believe he did that, he could have killed me! I would never do that. How reckless and inconsiderate he is. I can't let him get away with that. I need to do something." Such thoughts, if you do not let them go and allow them to pass by through your consciousness, but instead you focus your consciousness on them and allow them to continue to develop, may eventually become uncontrollable and escalate to the point of "road range," all because you could not accept and surrender to the reality that drivers of vehicles, including yourself, can be inconsiderate at times.
There is the objective reality that exists and presents itself to you each moment, and there is the separate, subjective "reality" you create in your mind. Many times, these two "realities" are not the same. As hard as you may try, you can’t change the reality of a moment that has already occurred. Nor can you change reality over that which you have no control, such as your favorite team playing below your expectations and losing, and you yelling at your TV in response.
This does not mean that you should merely accept conditions or systems that are deemed to be unjust or deplorable. Each of us is called in one way or another to do what we can to help alleviate or transform such conditions or systems to make for a better world. But to respond appropriately, you must first experience reality as it objectively and truly is in that moment, instead of expecting that moment to meet your subjective, preconceived expectations, judgments, or stories of what you believe the reality of that moment should be.
It may be helpful to spend time to reflect on what the poet Rumi wrote, “Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.”