The majority of people can be divided into two categories: those who dwell in their own ideal world and those who choose to face reality. The idealistic people may be creative and audacious, but usually their ideals result in disillusionment. Realistic people, on the other hand, knowing what can benefit them, have reasonable ambitions instead of unattainable dreams. They tend to get what they want.

Many of the people whom we can still remember today were idealistic and most of them were disillusioned at some points of their lives. Van Gogh was one of those people. He believed that he was making history, which he did, but the society then held a different opinion. His art meant nothing to most people. They were not inspired or impressed. Van Gogh was said to put a bullet into his abdomen, but no one could deny the possibility that he just came to his senses and realised that there was no one who was willing to buy his abstract and seemingly hideous paintings. He lost faith in his ideals; he probably stopped believing his abilities when he decided to commit suicide. For van Gogh, his ideals only led him to disillusionment. If he were realistic and got himself a real job or painted something popular, today we woould not have had a famous artist, but he might have been happier when he was alive.

Van Gogh was idealistic his whole life, while there are people who believe in ideals at a certain time. Such ideals, in the end, can also make people realise what they believe in is not real. When Nappoleon was making decisions about invading Russia, he became one of those idealists. His army could not stand the Russian winter and was not adequate enough to take over so big a country, but Napoleon simply refused to admit the facts. Consequently, he failed and watched his empire crumble. He came to know that he was not invincible after all. Napoleon was disillusioned by his failure, which was caused by his ideals.

However, people who choose to face reality instead of indulging themselves in their imagination usually get what they seek, because they know what they can get and what they cannot. Stephenie Meyer is realistic and she is relatively successful. She writes romantic and exceedingly unexciting vampire stories, which will never be remembered by anyone. Her readers are mostly teenagers, but a lot of them have stopped or will stop liking her stories. They move on to the next popular novel and forget all about her, but that is before she made a lot of money from her novels. I think that Meyer, like most writers in the world, wants to create something by which people will remember her. She could have tried her entire life to write a book which she wished would resemble a classic. It was highly likely that with her poor writing skills she would never have been famous and would have died unknown to anyone. Instead, Meyer is realistic; she knows that she is nowhere near Shakespeare or Tolstoy, so she writes popular books. Indeed her lame vampire stories have no content and no meaning whatsoever, but at least she is happy and comfortable and because of the story’s popularity many others also make money. Her readers, film producers, actors and people in other industry have managed to get what they want from her stories and not many real great writers ever made everybody happy when they were still alive. Realistic people like Meyer know what they are capable of and they usually do not spend time on things that they cannot achieve.

Though realistic people tend to be more successful than idealistic people when they are alive, the world still needs ideals and dreams. I am not idealistic; I am not even optimistic and I think people full of ideals are ridiculous, but sometimes I am not idealistic because I am afraid of the disillusionment. Many realistic people like me scorn unattainable dreams, either because we are cynical or because we are afraid, but I think many of us appreciate the fact that many idealists have given away their own comfort to make the world a better place to live in.