Am I Limited or Limitless?
Why did I put up barriers in my mind?
When I thought of expansion, I thought of wonder.
The two were symbiotic in my mind. Expansion existed because people dared to dream, to ask what if, and their wonder fueled transformation. Wonder existed because people expanded their reality to make room for it.
One feeds into the other. At least, that is the theory I have always believed in. Up until I realized I was suppressing expansion under the weight of self-doubt while I let wonder run free over my mind.
It is not that I thought I could not — we always could do anything.
But we normally throw could into the disjunction we use to divide our actual selves from our possible self.
I accepted wonder but denied its expansion. For the sake of grounding this thought experiment, an analogous example would be accepting “speculation” as a guest in my mind. It can enter. It can look around and gossip with all the pesky thoughts running around. It cannot be “in motion” though. Speculation has to stay put.
Note to All: To a certain extent, this may parallel the paradigms we were taught as children. The response to childish wonder is stand still. stop. And we internalize that so much we penetrate our consciousness with our physical state. What is inside no longer reflects outside. We were rearranged.
This revelation was slow-going. It started with all the small bits of life most people rarely considered at all. For example, I love working out. I have practiced Pilates and yoga since I was twelve. I even want to join a reformer-based gym. In terms of how I was supposed to exercise, only Pilates, yoga, and sometimes running were options.
Note to All: I am aware this is benign. That often means I will not lose your attention to a convoluted, hypothetical ramble that would have included birds, stereotyping, and spray tans.
Virtually, it took a decade for me to realize I MAY do something outside of those three activities.
It is not that I thought I could not — we always could do anything.
But we normally throw could into the disjunction we use to divide our actual selves from our possible self. The variants that exist in other worlds where we have the illusive confidence to pursue our desires.
I have the me twirling on aerial silks. The me getting yelled at in ballet class for terrible pointes. The me holding my handlebars on a cross-country bike marathon. And certainly, there is a me that has all three scrunched into her Notion calendar.
I had wholly excluded their lives as possibilities for me! And just like that, I went from a small concept to a bigger one. Expansion unlocked: I may choose.
I am allowed to give myself TIME to do all the things I want. To go off track and explore. And that was a shock.
Internal: And just like that, I am shamelessly switching to Sex in the City because it is a tragedy Carrie never had similar concept expansions about Big or her shoe addiction.
Mostly because shit never goes to plan, but also — and I consider this part to be the most unnerving — because we may accomplish those plans.
When I say expansion, I mean a framework where we are limitless. We choose to accomplish those things regardless of order and that, that is actually a preferred mindset because trying to maintain the same thoughts/activities/timeline is like tending to a barren plot everyday and expecting a harvest.
Before I get any further, I want to introduce us to two new key terms:
Limited — To confine within limits, to set bounds to (rarely in concrete sense); to bound, restrict.
Limitless — That, that has or admits of no limits; unlimited, illimitable; unbounded, unrestricted.
Note to All: The Oxford English Dictionary is my snotty reference choice when I choose to care for the desolated institution of the English Language.
There’s a difference between knowing what you want and chaining yourself to outcomes that cannot exist in an everchanging future.
The latter is a set-up for failure. Mostly because shit never goes to plan, but also — and I consider this part to be the most unnerving — because we may accomplish those plans. Strike out all the items on our lists. And that will leave us feeling more empty than ever before because we no longer fit into the precious life we so carefully planned out.
“It is less about letting change happen and much more about growing with change.”
Which is why we have to ask ourselves: What is the limit?
The story you’ve always wanted to tell so badly that you find yourself trapped in the character’s head at random… transported to a place where plates are made of toenails & bills are paid by the pound in flaming hot Cheeto dust, and yet love can hurt as bad and be as rich as it does in our real world…
When you have had your little moments and turned them into one big realization. What then is stopping you from doing or having it all?
A harmonious cry emerges from bank accounts around the world: Money.
Internal: I know I was a pre-school teacher in another life. I do not want to follow that path again, personally, but that must be the origin story for the erratic teaching energy within me. How often did I dance with Elmo on a sunny fall day?
Because it is scary. Turning into wonder and searching for what I felt called towards. And then deepening those choices with expansion? Terrifying.
Oooo, now I have to admit all the things I wanted to avoid. Fundamentally, if basic needs are not met that is a financial issue. Money yields resource and as such, everything I am about to say does not apply in those cases.
Though it may be less about a dollar amount and more about the material. If you could live in a free furnished apartment with regular grocery deliveries and healthcare visits, you wouldn’t need a dollar, no?
Internal: What does it say about people, if we have all been blessed with lives and beauty and knowledge, but we want to spend our time oppressing everyone and asking why they cannot stretch the $10 we just spent on a bag of chips?
But when we say things like we aren’t rich enough to be the person who wakes up in the morning at 6 am to journal and sip on some small-batched herbal tea with a French treat in hand?
When we say that we aren’t rich enough to start a project, an art series that has haunted you in your dreams for two years?
The one that feels like it could redefine you in all the best of ways; the one that makes your fingers tingle when you have that little burst of energy to try and sketch the pieces out — the story you’ve always wanted to tell so badly that you find yourself trapped in the character’s head at random, standing on the bus on your way to work and being transported to a place where plates are made of toenails & bills are paid by the pound in flaming hot Cheeto dust, and yet love can hurt as bad and be as rich as it does in our real world; the song you know by heart, every beat, every melody, every breath, all coming together to sing you to sleep each night for months but you never let it pass your lips — these things that require you, as a whole (body, spirit, soul) and nothing more; is it still money stopping you from bringing them to life?
Note to All: This paragraph was inspired by Kafka.
In my case, I focused on material abundance and toiled with conventional methods when I should have centered my creativity, my art, to get my desires. I was doing empty things when I should have been creating.
Because it is scary. Turning into wonder and searching for what I felt called towards. And then deepening those choices with expansion? Terrifying. But steadfast belief is what produces results.
Going full in on myself and expecting the best without knowing the future.
Internal: When people discovered the world was round, I know, I just know, there was a moment where they went and said, “Why the hell does everything have to lead back into each other. Separation is sexy.” In this moment, I related to them so hard. Because why is it that we need to fully believe in ourselves before we can get results, but in order to believe in ourselves we desire — not need, but damn is it a help — assurance that we’ll only get once we move forward with that belief? Life is a feedback loop.
We need a “It Is Done” mentality. My grandmother made it a mission to tell me this. In her view, I needed firmness. The understanding that there is nothing I cannot do because I have chosen to do it. I am starting to understand that now.
Are we limited or limitless?
The former is true when we give in to mediocrity. The latter, when we become aware of wonder and expansion again, bringing them back from our minds’ mental exile. When we choose, and choose again, eager to see what happens.
I ask that you join me on the road to entelechy. As we travel, I promise to punctuate our journey with the biweekly reflections of a long-lost writer.
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