If we create our own reality, then why does our "reality" not match our deepest ideals, aspirations and hopes? The answer -- your thoughts are the culprit. This idea has led many down a wishful highway and attracted legions along for the ride.
Over the past several years this 'wishful thinking' has become endemic. Everywhere you turn 'your thoughts create your reality' is all the rage and yet no one has questioned exactly the extent and degree to which it does. No limits are ever specified. The premise for all this narcissism, self absorption and entitlement is that whatever consumes your thoughts is what you will eventually get in life. Your thoughts are energy, they emit a frequency, and like attracts like; therefore, the frequency of your thoughts, good or bad, are the results of your own making.
What is so disconcerting is how many people genuinely believe this - that if bad things happen to you, or if you haven't achieved the things you want to do, then you must deserve it because of your attitude or your thoughts - which allows them to feel a) superior to you and others and b) somehow magically immune from misfortune. What is even worse, if taken to an extreme, is then the total lack of empathy and compassion of other people's suffering and hardships.
We live in a world of duality from which we cannot possibly escape. We will be made to experience loss as well as fortune, happiness as well as pain, success as well as failure. The law of duality, or opposites, helps us to achieve a balanced sense of self. Our life won't simply improve by overriding sadness, anger, fear and other unpleasant feelings with positive thoughts. Think about it. Without feeling the emotional pain or impact that arises due to these setbacks, we will never be driven to change things for the better. Every event, good or bad, is an opportunity to evolve, expand in capacity, to accept more of life. This is essential for psychological wholeness. At some point, we must all come to terms with the challenges, struggles and failures in our lives, because none of us are immune. So don't wish for a magic fix, wish for wisdom to overcome them.
Furthermore, all this positive thinking/you create you reality just aggrandizes the ego, giving it the illusion of control and power none of which fall within its domain. The ego or human aspect will always be at the mercy of the soul, it is a SERVANT and not a CREATOR. Its sole purpose is to fulfill the soul's agenda, and when it goes against this agenda, suffering ensues. But how many know their soul's agenda in the first place? How can you create when you don't even have a blueprint? Are you going to create your life by imitation? Are you going to wish and visualize the life of your neighbor? How many even understand what the soul is trying to express, let alone allow themselves to be a conduit?
When experts spew 'you create your reality' which 'You' are they referring to by the way - the ego or the soul/the human or divine? This distinction needs to be made. The ego is not a creator, the soul is, which means the ego has little to no control over what happens or anything else for that matter. It is merely a witness and a participant in the soul's journey through time and space. The soul decides how and when certain things come to fruition, all things move on its cosmic time table and will not change course just to appease the desires and whims of its human counterpart. Never has. Never will.
Even if the ego undergoes a transformation and achieves a certain level of soul consciousness, its powers will still be limited. In other words, the human 'you' does not create reality. Your thoughts do not create your reality either. So all the positive thinking and vision boarding and dreaming is not going to get you what you want. External reality is fixed. Our response to that reality is fluid. Accept the fixed. Be fluid. And see what happens.
At the most fundamental level reality is not matter but pure information or consciousness. Thinking positively in order to influence reality to give you what you want is not possible, but actually futile. The whole idea of just thinking your desires into being rarely works because most people live in their intellect and the intellect is not the agent of manifestation. In order to influence reality/manifestation of anything requires access to consciousness or soul, and this takes time and inner work.
The only power we do have is how we respond and that choice of response determines everything. If we understand that, then we will recognize that our role is one of co-creator and not as creator. It's a fifty/fifty deal. If you note, the great mystics never used the word create. Ever. They all say release, bend, flow like water, surrender, accept, but never create because that's the realm of the divine and none of us are at the level yet. If we were, then we would be able to heal at will and we can't. We would be happier and we are not. Earth would be a utopia and it isn't.
What that leaves us with then is the responsibility of how we react, respond, and interpret events. That we are not merely helpless victims of circumstance, but that our own personal perspective in relation to circumstance alters our experience of those circumstances, such that it can be asserted 'you create our own reality.'
Thoughts do have value, they influence our mind, our actions and behaviors, attitudes, our successes and failures, and even how we treat others. But they need to be put in their proper context, not overblown to the point where we believe we are in full control of creating reality and nothing bad can happen to us unless we let it. Managing our thoughts, both the negative and the positive is important work, but limitations have to be acknowledged as well, unless we choose otherwise.
In light of that, may we all aspire to co-create a reality where each one of us is healthy, happy and wealthy.