Terry, I agree that reality is what it is - regardless of what we do or believe about it. Your version of reality sounds just as subjective as anyone else's, mind you. Also sounds more like a philosophical answer than a straight one ;) Which is fine. You seem to be quite a philosophical man.
The problem with talking about reality is that you can't. Each of us has their interpretive function going 24/7.
We start off immediately liking/not liking what we are hearing and shut off the flow. The filter kicks in.
The topic under discussion is how we destroy the VALIDITY (of our mind). That comes from the filtering and the reinterpreting and the subsequent FEELING ABOUT what we are thinking.
We have to be careful we don't distort what we are thinking about.
Think of a Crime Scene. You can damage evidence and skew the facts if you aren't very careful how you handle it.
If you find yourself NOT LIKING what you are hearing, seeing, reading----your subjective/intepretive filter has ALREADY kicked in ahead of the facts and tampered with the evidence.
We all have a right to reality. The only valid decisions we make are when we see what our choices really are.
The ability to see things clearly does not come automatically.