Publisher's Synopsis
Soon we should agree that humans' natural qualities do not match their common (idealistic) perception of themselves, and that this mental incongruity accounts for most of our personal and interpersonal problems. In addition, the characteristics of the environments we have gradually built around ourselves make it impossible for us to converge with either our natural or idealistic view of a human. Nevertheless, it seems as if we must face the same old cliché, 'Who are we?' even more seriously now, in order to detect the origin of our personal and social problems. Our findings would then make us wonder with even more surprise, 'Why have we become this way?' Under the present circumstances, it is quite difficult for parents to advise their children about life. The competition in society to give children all the privileges they supposedly deserve and more is too stiff to allow any one parent teach the reality of life and its hardships to his/her children. Instead, they grow up to believe that life is a place to find happiness, which they also imagine comes from pleasures, sexuality, wealth, and arrogance. Parents are doomed if they support them to follow their shallow dreams, as they often turn out to be too fanciful and frustrating for them. And parents are doomed also if they try to push their children a bit toward a more practical and simpler lifestyles in hopes of curbing their rising expectations from life and relationships every year. We get blamed for not letting them follow their dreams and we get blamed for interfering in their lives and phony ideals. How can we tell our kids that all their dreams nowadays, including fame, love, trust, sincerity, and all the rest of all those good imaginations are only sure ways of losing more chunks of their independence, identity, and integrity? Of course, there is a lot of fun living in the 'perceived world' according to our fantasies, as if we have gone to movies to relax our busy minds for a short while. But the danger is that this 'perceived world' has overwhelmed our whole being and identity and thus obscured our senses and judgment. It is this submission to our phony identities and lifestyles that causes our chronic depression and stress, all due to the prevalent features of social living nowadays.
