Walls

We live inside walls. All of us! We spend a lifetime creating them. They set the boundaries of how we live, the risks we’re willing to take and the potential for success we hope for. The walls define our lives, make us feel in control and become our comfort zone.

We live inside walls. We think they protect us from feeling failure and they keep us from trying for more, for banking on familiarity where relationships only grow so far. Somewhere in our lives, usually in our indefatigable youth, we think we will live forever, achieve whatever we want and live without walls. But…

We live inside walls. Each one of us! Imagine for a moment that the walls are permeable and have doors. Ideas seep inside the porous sides and roof, undaunted by the barricades we have always imagined. The doors have locks, but we have the keys. The doors open only when we’re ready to walk through. But that means we have to admit something very important. Namely, that we construct our lives. We build the walls. We define what gets in and what doesn’t. Any novel idea too often finds itself discounted and buried in an underground grave, like a basement filled with bones and skeletons of others who tried to break free. We try to ignore new thoughts and that there are pathways outside.

We live inside walls. We may experience as sense of dissatisfaction, of even emptiness. But inside we feel the confidence of the familiar. We may sense a lack of fulfillment that challenges the early belief that the world was ours to conquer. But over the years, we let fear and anxiety inhabit the interior spaces. When we think of leaving or of building new additions to our inner sanctuary, doubt stops us cold. Anxiety makes us freeze or like we fell into quick sand. We ask, “Why would I want more – shouldn’t I be content?” “How could I rebuild my life without the walls crashing down and ending my world as I know it?”

We live inside walls.And the walls are always our starting point. Not imagination, fertile and alive with fresh thoughts and visions. Think up a new idea and we examine it as if it lived in a coffin in need of supernatural resurrection to be taken seriously. Using the imagination can be scary. Because it means possibilities are allowed to posses us and keep us looking ahead. We end up afraid of new ideas, as if the idea itself could strike a fatal blow and hurl us headlong into oncoming traffic.

We live inside walls. And yes, we actually live inside these structures of wood and stone. Inside, we try to create life, excitement and the sense of purpose. We want nothing more. But we keep giving in to the lessor. We give in to the “no chance” it could ever happen. We create a will that’s shallow but safe, ignorant of what “the more” could be. If we just don’t see the “more,” we limit our disappointment. We have to snuff desire and want. We have to kill potential.

We live inside walls. Underneath the surface of our story, we know we have potential for more – to enhance our skills and to breathe into our lives a sense of greater destiny and fulfillment. We have the potential to live more fully, to love more effortlessly and to lead more strategically. But potential becomes the enemy. Think too much about what could be, and the walls start to fall apart. For the walls are held up by self-doubt, by an “I could never do it” resolve, by an often tortured conscience that knows the boundaries need to flex and even be pushed aside. And maybe even replaced with new ones.

We live inside walls. Yet at some point in every man and women’s life, the power of hope and imagination challenge the status quo. And the right questions get asked, such as…

  • What do I really want in life?
  • How do I define success?
  • Do I want greater fulfillment?
  • Do I need better, more life giving priorities?
  • Do my priorities keep me from being present with those I love?
  • Do I love life?
  • Am I happy?
  • What potential am I leaving on the table?
  • What stops me from living more fully?
  • Where did all the self-doubt come from?
  • How did anxiety and fear creep into my life?
  • What do anxiety and fear keep me from knowing and doing?
  • Are my strengths being fully realized or do I center on my limitations?
  • Am I courageous enough to change the things I don’t like and replace them with ones I do?
  • Am I willing to walk and live beyond the walls?

We live inside walls. We all do. But..

Since we create the very walls that define our lives, why not create new ones? It all begins in the imagination. And within the imagination, we have a chance to see a different life. Could be similar to the one we live but a life enriched by the determination to have and experience all we can be.