I’m often amazed by phrases, words and habits that people grasp onto. There was a time a few years ago that I noticed several colleagues and friends embraced a trend in which essentially every sentence would end in the intonation that would suggest a question. It drove me crazy and left me wondering why so many would jump to make it the new in thing.

What’s driving me crazy these days is the phrase “perception is reality.” People are tucking that phrase into sentences here, there and everywhere. While it seems most fitting in the world of marketing products or politicians, to accept that everything can be simply boiled down to a perception becoming a reality is to sell short the world we live in, the people we encounter or our experiences. I want the authentic, real deal, and nothing less.

People are claiming that the experience of virtual reality and high-definition television is “just like being there,” to which I say, “Not.” (Whoops. I’ve embraced the trend of adding “not” at the end of a sentence. See how we get sucked in?) Nothing replaces actually being there. To suggest otherwise is to discount the keen senses of smell, taste, touch and sound.

Sight seems to have become the dominant sense these days. So, here’s looking at you – are you for real? Or has Photoshop stretched you out and taken out a few facial blemishes? Are you gazing at this cleaned-up photo and perceiving this to be the new you that you must live up to?

To suggest that “perception is reality” is to put a false reality on a whole experience. A complete experience requires the engagement of all senses. To stop short is to cast a quick and distorted judgment, which is a far cry from true reality. In the world of marketed products and polished politicians, we’re being set up to be disappointed. I, for one, don’t want to get sucked in.

And what about the person next door and the people we encounter every day, who also are trying to make their way in this world? A judgment based on a quick look can be deadly. We’ve been given five senses for a reason. Used in balance, I believe, we’re best able to arrive at a more concrete reality based on a whole experience.

It’s time to get real and know who and what’s real in the marketplace, the political arena and in our community and neighborhoods, too. Broad-stroke perception becomes reality only if we let it. I’m not buying in. Or should I say: Buying in? Not.