The trials and tribulations of a person's life, while difficult, are necessary for a person's growth. More often than not, escaping reality to avoid these challenges produces negative results. Getting lost in books or into one's mind are acceptable in the short term, but keeping immersed in these imaginary worlds can deprive a person of experiences and knowledge.Why unintentionally punish yourself? Escaping reality in this way, is like forcing yourself into solitary confinement for no reason.

If life is like a movie, then avoiding reality is like pressing the skip button. Reality can be harsh, but there is just as much joy as sorrow. Escaping reality causes a person to miss out on so many experiences and the lessons that come with them. For example, in the novel Catcher In The Rye By J. D. Salinger, Holden spends most of the book wandering around New York City in a daze, trying his hardest to avoid reality and go back to the innocence of his childhood universe. Holden was expelled out of many schools, and lost years of his life because of this. Valuable life lessons are learnt through enduring adversity, rather than avoiding it.

Escaping reality is a temporary experience for most. Something typically happens that pulls one back to real life. However, occasionally a person gets too lost and can not find the way back. They may not be able to return, causing mental disorders. In Lord Of The Flies by William Golding, for example, the children make a decision to escape reality by joining Jack's game. They lost themselves in their imaginary universe and did not have the strength or will to get out of it when it became destructive.

Another type of escapism is blame. Projecting the fault on others to avoid guilt, is a way of denying reality and reducing inner conflict. While this does settle some inner turmoil, it also causes interpersonal issues. Constantly blaming others pushes people away, leaving a person alone and even worse off than before. The imaginary world where one does not have to deal with unpleasant feelings like guilt, jealousy and being needy is a ruinous place that is far more difficult to overcome then it is to sink into.
The human mind is a wondrous thing that can hold a person down, in terms of growth, just as easily as it can elevate them. Loosing one's self in an imaginary sub-conscious world will ultimately produce negative results. That world may have a pretty cover, but when all is said and done, it never really existed in the first place and all a person has to come back to is a lonely reality where the people that could not enter the world as well, have already left.