Life in progress


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#SoCS – Setting a Ceiling

When we’re kids, we think we can do anything. Sky’s the limit. As we get older we realize that reality dictates differently. There are some things we thought we could do that we can’t. Flying by flapping our arms, for instance.

Putting on a cape and being a superhero may be one of the other things we might think we can’t do, but is that true? We might not be able to save the world, but I believe we limit ourselves to what we are conditioned to “know” of the world and how much we can change it. Sure, we may not be able to singlehandedly solve world hunger, but good deeds tend to roll downhill and gain momentum as they do. What we do today might have much farther-reaching effects than we can ever know. And if not, at least we tried.

It’s the same with personal goals. We humans tend to sabotage ourselves with our ideas that we can only go so far and do so much with our lives. I have a friend who was complaining (and with good reason) that he was stuck in a place of poverty, unable to fight his way out. Therefore, he is unhappy. I can fully understand that. Yet there are avenues – ones completely free of monetary cost – that he could pursue if he chooses to. I suppose that also depends on the depth of his unhappiness… I know what it is to feel completely unmotivated.

But I’ve learned one thing over the course of my life. The sky is the ceiling if you never go out. And the breadth of my imagination make the walls of my dreams. My belief that I can do just about anything I set out to do is only limited by my health and my ability to find ways around the barriers that inevitably come up. Yes, some barriers take years to navigate. But it’s only in those moments when I give up that the sky drops to eight feet above the floor.

… if this is what vertigo does to me, maybe it’s not such a bad thing …

This wildly philosophical post is brought to you by Stream of Consciousness Saturday. Click the link and join in today! https://lindaghill.com/2017/07/21/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-july-2217/

 


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It’s For Your Own Good! A Rant

What are you striving for? Is it within your reach? Yes? Then go for it. You want to lose weight? Stop eating cupcakes. You want to write a novel? Get off Facebook and Twitter and spend more time writing. You want a better job? Make more of an effort to get one than bitching about the one you have.

Is what you want not within your reach? Then stop spending so much energy wanting it. You want to be taller? Too bad. You want to live on a yacht the size of an apartment building but you’re on welfare because you’re too lazy to work? Give it up. You want to be younger? Ain’t gonna happen.

I’m so tired of listening to people complain, who aren’t able to either live up to or define their limitations.

How did we end up being a society of whiners? Is it Facebook and that tempting sweet spot–the box asking us, “What’s on your mind?”–that taunts us to write whatever we’re thinking and share it with the world? Is it the message, “You can be anything you want to be,” that’s expanded people’s heads so that they barely fit on their pillows? “Dream big!” they say.

“Wake up!” I say.

Enjoy the life you are cut out for. Know your limitations! You’ll be much happier.

End rant.