Managing Limits
The established buzz from the quantum physics crowd is that everything is interactive with everything else. Wave after endless wave of all sizes and shapes eternally smashing into each other, building creation up, tearing creation down.
Sure things are always coming into existence - that's the glass half full part. But creation's also constantly shutting the whole thing down - hence the glass half empty. This sets up an never ending slush pile of limits and restraints. There is no choice, we have to deal with them. Sounds wrong to me but maybe I'm just being fussy.
Seems like a universe of never ending motion should deliver never ending possibilities. Which it apparently does. But all of those possibilities have limits. Yes, the limits come and go but for the duration that they are here, they can be pretty hard and fast.
If you fought the law and the law won, 10 to 20 years in prison is a very hard limit. Don't do that and find out. Even less dramatic limits can be very restrictive. Long term relationships, jobs of all descriptions. Running out of money.
For every opportunity, there is surely a corresponding limit. Let's consider two big sets of limits:
- those imposed by others and
- those we impose ourselves.
Limits imposed by others seem pretty obvious. Governments do that. Employers do that. Other people set limits on us. Friends, lovers. Anyone who dominates us sets limits. Socially, we talk about limits constantly - respecting them, overcoming them.
Make a romantic date and prepared to explore each other's limits.
Become an athlete in any sport and set out to break through limits.
Whatever we choose to engage, its wise to see that we are choosing the limits that go with that.
If that's the territory we plan to play in, then we play within those limits. So, can we push them a little? No? Do we have to back off? No? Maybe later? Maybe if we try another approach? If we force it will we break it? Or, maybe just a little bit more....BLAM!!!
In every setting, as a creator changing the state of things, we are massaging the limits of the environment. Its an art. It's an essential one.
Depending upon how much we require the conditions of a given situation, we may need to accept the limits and work within them to achieve our goals. A bad job, a bad environment readily becomes intolerable, yet we are not always free to leave as in the aforementioned fantasy of prison.
It could be just as probable that we have to break with the whole system and indeed leave, make a change and go try something else. Every situation we engage is a micro-environment we must adapt to. Adaptation is the operative term here.
Adaptation at all times implies our survival now for our ability to continue surviving in the future.
Limits are the system of the local environment we adapt to. Pay attention. Gain knowledge. Be aware of options. Observe others. Model possible plays. Pay attention to timing. Always be prepared to do what your gut says must be done.
That brings us to you and your limits.
How are you different than the environment you're adapting to? How are your ideas, abilities, wishes, dreams any more or less restrictive than limits imposed by outside forces?
Each of us has some basket of limits. Many of us have very real physical limitations. Many of us have educational or skill-set limitations. These are authentic conditions we must be mindful of an integrate into our decisions.
Many more of us have limitations we structure purely with reason or frame entirely within our feelings. Are they authentic? By which I mean, are they accurate assessments of who we are vis a vis our environment? Are we more than we think we are? Or is that mere fantasy?
Can we be more if we set any given belief or perception aside and explore other options? What would we set aside? What option would we explore?
How would we test our ability to overcome a limit in our own heart or mind? What if we did? Who would we be, then?
For all of the open-ended nature of our existence, we hold ourselves within perceived constraints. We do that as individuals. We do that as a group.
Are they actually limits? The answer could be yes or no. We need to be mindful both of the cognitive territory these questions embrace and the actual conditions of the world as it is.
Then we could accurately assess the significance of any limit we consider and whether we want to overcome it or just stay put.
Imagine how your power might grow if you just mastered that.