We come across possibilities every day. They flit through our lives like butterflies, drip through our hands like water. Possibilities can be very hard to grasp.
This is especially true of your own possibilities – your own possible you.
As we grow and age, we are hammered into a certain shape based on the expectations of family, friends, loved ones, society, and ourselves. Many of us make choices based on a need to fit in or escape, and then we are left to deal with the consequences of those choices. Sometimes we feel trapped into a certain way of living based on choices we’ve made.
But we are always running into new possibilities.
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve found that my issue isn’t really identifying the new possibilities for my life – it is believing that these possibilities can be real. More, I find it difficult to believe it is worthwhile and valid to work towards attaining possibilities when they seem far-fetched. Especially if what I see for myself – the vision I have of myself – doesn’t mesh with the way family, friends, and society see me.
I don’t think I’m the only one. I think we all run the risk of packing ourselves away in boxes because we don’t believe what’s outside the box is real. We don’t think the possibility CAN be real, so we turn away from it. And most of the time we’re encouraged to feel that way.
It’s not intentional. Well, not always. The people in our lives get used to understanding us in a certain way. If we try to break the mold, their instinct is to shove us back into it. Another person cannot truly see the real you or understand all of your potential.
We also live in a society that teaches people to put emphasis in certain areas. If we don’t fit in, then we are discounted and sidelined.
In other words, the only validation you may get in the pursuit of your possibilities, your only support, may be yourself. And that’s hard.
I know when I get caught up in the whirlwind and chaos of life, it’s easy for me to listen to the noise, to give in to the pressure to walk the path that’s not my own. I believe the people who tell me I’m wasting my time trying to be myself, that I have to do what everyone else does, that what I see can’t be real.
But I think they’re wrong. Fame, fortune, even success might not be attainable, but your own potential absolutely is. We do not have to remain as we are. We can change. As long as we really work towards the possibilities we see – not just endlessly talk them to death or give them lip-service and never do anything about them – then those possibilities are valid. They are not certain – they are possibilities after all, not certainties – but they ARE real. And even if we never attain the exact vision we see, we will be better people for having made the journey.
So get out there and grab a possibility! Do it now! After all, you aren’t getting any younger…
As you think, you travel. As you love, you attract. You are today where your thoughts have brought you; you will be tomorrow where your thoughts take you. You cannot escape the results of your thoughts; but you can endure and learn, accept and be glad. You will realize the vision of your heart, not the idle wish. You will gravitate toward that which you secretly most love. Into your hands will be placed the exact result of your thoughts; you will receive that which you earn; no more, no less. Whatever your present environment may be, you will fall, remain, or rise with your thoughts, your vision–your ideal.
James Lane Allen
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