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Real life is life as it truly exists. Generally speaking, life doesn't always conform to our expectations of it. As such, "real life" is often used to express a sense of disillusionment with life or to set the expectation that life is hard. Definition of Real LifeLife as it truly exists. The term real life is also used to denote the things that really matter in life or that are most connected to external things such as people and places. The following are common examples of real life and its various meanings.All (116) Everyday Life (5) Challenges (42) Action (16) Successes (29) Experiences (24) Accidents | Addiction | Adventures | Asking For Help or Advice | Bad Habits | Biases & Discrimination | Breakups | Bullying & Insults | Business Failure | Business Successes | Buying a Home | Career Changes | Career Setbacks | Commuting to Work | Competition | Completing Projects | Complicated Emotions | Concerts | Cooking Dinner | Cost of Living | Creative Experiences | Cultural Experiences | Dating | Debate | Debt | Difficult Jobs | Difficult People | Disputes | Divorce | Emergencies | Entrepreneurial Experiences | Facing Criticism | Facing Difficult Truths | Falling Out With Friends | Family Activities | Family Issues | Festivals | Financial Struggles | Forgiveness | Getting Married | Getting a Good Job | Getting a Promotion | Graduating With a Degree | Grandparenting | Grit & Resilience | Grocery Shopping | Health Issues | Helping Others | Hobbies | Immigration Challenges | Introspection | Job Loss | Jumping Through Hoops | Keeping Your Word | Lack of Direction | Leading Others | Learning a Language | Legal Issues | Lifelong Learning | Lifestyle Changes | Limited Resources | Loneliness | Loss of Loved Ones | Love & Understanding | Making Friends | Mistakes | Moments of Wonder | Music Experiences | Nightlife | Office Politics | Overcoming Adversity | Overcoming Fears | Overcoming a Limitation | Parenting | Parenting Challenges | Parenting Successes | Parties | Paying Bills | Performance Art | Personal Failures | Personal Reflection | Planning | Poor Working Conditions | Poverty | Practicing a Talent | Pragmatism | Prioritizing | Publishing Research | Quitting a Bad Habit | Recognizing and Accepting Failures | Recreation | Regret | Regularly Exercising | Rejection | Relationship Issues | Respect & Trust | Risk-Taking | Rites of Passage | Road Trips | Rumors | Saving | Self-discipline | Social Exclusion | Social Experiences | Solving a Problem | Sports | Standing In Line | Starting a Business | Studying | Supporting a Family Member | Sustaining Relationships | Tax Burden | Traveling | Volunteering | Work Experiences | Working Hard |
Keep in mind that the list above includes five distinct meanings of real life: everyday life, real life challenges, real action, real successes and real experiences.
Everyday LifeThe sense that real life are those everyday scenes in our lives that are repeated over and over again such that they can begin to feel bland and uninspired. This is unfortunate because these are often things that take up much of our time such as our routine, commute, job or sleeping.Viewing large parts of our time as a kind of filler probably isn't a completely positive view of life. The solution here can be to continually change your life to defeat bland routine. This isn't always practical, so another approach is to appreciate the little things in life such that life doesn't have to be dramatic to be wonderful. For example, focusing on what you are doing in the moment to find joy in doing humble things well.
ChallengesPeople often use "real life" to express some type of disillusionment with the sense that life isn't what they expect. The root of this is that we have little influence over the universe and it isn't likely to bend to our ideas for it. Life is also just fundamentally filled with adversity, problems and failures that can be hard to accept and overcome.ActionThe sense that real life is taking action and doing real things to sideline challenges and thrive. Here real things are things that can work given the external realities of the world. For example, if you want to be a musician, the real world may view you as talented or not. There is much that you can do to influence this such as practicing or seeking inspiration -- these are real actions.Still, the real world isn't always going to meet your expectations even where you are taking plenty of realistic steps to make this happen. As such, an important element of this is the pragmatism to adapt to real world feedback.SuccessesThere is much sense that real life is about tangible or social results such that you achieve the things that humans commonly want and need. ExperiencesThe sense that real life is about experience, particularly experiences that are deeply meaningful or fulfilling. ImperfectionThe philosophy that real life is imperfect but that this imperfection actually makes life more perfect. This involves some sense that failure and success, sadness and joy, need and fulfillment are complements whereby one wouldn't be meaningful without the other.SummaryThe term real life is commonly used to denote a sense of disillusionment whereby life is harder or more challenging than expected. It is also used to denote things that are viewed as important in life such as taking action, achieving things and having meaningful experiences.Next: Real World Problems
Real Life
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