There are 3 key planes that humans exist on - the objective, the subjective, and the social. Each is a "type of reality", and to have full, rich, and successful lives we must learn how to live in each of these planes.
Objective Reality. External reality appears to exist, seems to be persistent, and seems to be consistent. Few people dispute this - some philosophers, or the immature, may bicker at the edges and claim not to believe this, but their actions suggest otherwise [1]. Learning how to gain information, experiment, judge truth, use logic, and manipulate objective reality is an important set of skills. The scientific method is thus: ask questions of reality, and honestly listen to the answer. This is simple, yet not easy. Asking the right questions, actually paying attention to an answer, realizing when you meant to ask one thing but in fact asked another, and honestly listening (you often do not like the answer) are all not easy. What we typically learn as "the scientific method" in school is more often actually just some tactics used by scientists, and thus does not always make sense or even get used consistently, but the overall stragety is simple and the same - ask questions, honestly listen to the answer. Learning the basic scientific approach is powerful, has created vast material wealth in our society, and will improve your life to the extent you live the scientific method. It is mind boggling what we can do and create when we ask good quesitons, and take the time to listen to the answer. Learning the scientific method and creating the social conditions that allowed for the honest listening is no easy task. We have succeeded in doing so - anyone with the dedication and willingness can learn the scientific method, and learn how to live in alignment with objective reality. Many do not, including many scientists, but you can.
Subjective Reality. You are conscious. Amazing. It would be mind blowing, if it were not mind defining. This is one of the few things you actually truely know. Subjective truth is everything that feels important - emotions, love, meaning, consciousness, the moment. Many limiting beliefs exist, many unskilled ways of experiencing ones subjective reality exist. Learning how to handle your emotions, to build your character, is one of the most powerful and immediate ways of improving your life. Some scientists seem so taken by the power of objective truth that they seem to discount this factor of life [2], but you can "prove" the sheer insanity of doing so by just experiencing right now. Listen. Look. Feel. Amazing. We often forget just how awesome the universe is, right now, if we simple open our minds to the sheer crazy beautiful fact of consciousness and emotions. Learning to meditate and taking an experiential approach to life are good ways to hone your "subjective skills". Much that limits us are self imposed beliefs, not truth, or neglect of what is important on the subjective level - it doesn't matter if you do well on empty efforts, you are still wasting your time and life.
Social Reality. We are social animals, we need others, are limited by our group, and find meaning with others. Power is essentially our ability to conduct ourselves as we wish in a social environment. The misuse of power can seriously limit others, and preventing such misuse remains a key factor in maintaining a good society. It was a long and hard struggle to get to the point were power of the few was restrained to the point where a "commoner" could speak honestly and communicate what they have found about objective reality to others. If we create healthy and strong connections with others we create a vibrant social network that gives meaning, creates wealth, and gives capacity to our lives. Improving your social network brings value to others and to you, and allows you to both create and store value. Reaching out to others, picking and perking them up, open and honest communication - e.g. sharing yourself - are how you start to build these muscles.
As far as I can tell, these 3 aspects of human reality are "all there is". If we learn to handle ourselves in these 3 domains we will have happy and successful lives, if we don't we most likely will not.
Our society has focused mainly on objective reality and the creation of material wealth. The value and beauty the comes out of this focus is astounding. We live longer and better, to such an extent that even our trash is amazing - a powerful measure of just how wealthy we are (go back in time and you could sell much that we throw out for a pretty penny). We have choice and resources. But why do we focus on this aspect? The positive reason is that it makes for a comfortable and long life, one that is largely easy and pleasant, and it allows people to focus on what is important to and for them. The negative reason is that this is easier to do - we can "train" people to be a cog in a big machine, without much effort or consideration, and have reasonably amazing outcomes, we can do the easy (versus simple) and walk through life without engaging it and others. We don't have to think about how we are doing things, since we are guarenteed a "decent" result without effort.
The important implication is this: we both have vast resources - material wealth - and plenty of room for improvement. On an individual level, our society allows us to do almost anything we want to improve ourselves - and even if we are "poor" we are richer than most of the people currently in the world, and most of people who exisited in history. We are materially secure, even if we don't feel this way, it is true. We can take life choice "risks" without risking much - the worse case is that you are materially richer than "99%" of the people who have ever lived. On a collective level we can vastly improve others lives, both in simple (smile at a stranger) and profound (build up meaning in peoples lives) ways. The simple fact is this: we are materially rich, and yet we live in a society that is poor in social and emotional ways due to largely ignoring these factors (and due to the ease of our wealth we are not so hot at objective reality either - we are rich enough to be able to afford to be wrong and hold incorrect ideas without significant, or at least obvious, pain). Our focus on the material has given us security, and the means to engage either of the other two factors with almost no risk. We simply have to confront our fears, wake up, and engage reality. It is not easy, but it is simple, and it is rewarding.
Notes:
[1] If they truely believed otherwise, then offer them a bet: 1 to 1000 odds for money that objective reality does/does not exist. Put up $100 bucks, so they must put up $100, 000, and have the test as this: cut off your hand. If they truely believe there is no objective truth, then it does not matter if they cut their own hand off or not, if they loose the bet or not, etc. In fact, why are they wearing clothes and holding down a job and submitting to gravity and social norms? If one truely believed in no objective reality, would you live a normal and tedious life? One would have to be completely boring, unimaginative, and unintelligence to live a normal life - the only reason most people live normal lives is due to neccessity, they have strong objective constraints. If you are not constrained by objective reality, why are you limiting yourself? There is only one reason - you actually know, or believe, you are in fact so constrained. This footnote is painfully obvious, and should go without saying, but to a large extent our society has elevated criticism as an ideal - children are rewarded for pointing out faults, even if they are not significant, realistic, or important. Yes, sure, maybe objective reality does not exist - or is not as highly constraining as we think - but this is (1) obvious, and (2) not so productive or important. We train children to have a largly empty and impotent frame - stylistic criticism - and get adults who are diminuate, bitter, and immature. Criticism as a system is corrosive, limiting, and sad - and to a large extent is the focus of our educational system.
[2] This amazes me, but it is true. This may simply be a matter of strength - we tend to focus on what we are strong at, and discount other things. The sheer amazing wealth we have generated from focusing on the objective may also convince some, who are somewhat noncritical thinkers, that it is the only important factor - yes, it is amazing, but so are the other factors.
