We humans experience two kinds of limitations: physical and mental.
I had a remarkable conversation with a woman about physical limitations. Nancy
was a sufferer of M.S. She could no longer walk and spent her waking hours in a
wheelchair.
She asked me, "Do you want to know my reason for living?"
"What is it?" I wondered.
"To liberate people. Before I got my wheelchair," she explained, "I had trouble
getting around. This wheelchair does not confine me, it sets me free! Now I can
go places!
"People speak of being 'shut in,'" she continued. People who are confined to a
room or a house or a bed are not 'shut in.' They're 'shut out' -- shut out of
activities and shut out of people's lives. So my mission is to liberate people,
however I can."
Because of her disease, Nancy now helps people find ways of gaining more
physical freedom. But we humans suffer from other kinds of limitations, too. We
need liberation from enslaving beliefs and attitudes.
"Almost everybody walks around with a vast burden of imaginary limitations
inside his head," says J. H. Brennan. "While the burden remains, personal
success is as difficult to achieve as the conquest of Everest with a sack of
rocks tied to your back."
What burden of limiting beliefs and attitudes are you walking around with? Do
you ever say, "I can't do that" or "I can't change this or that"? Do you ever
think that you'll never be able to pursue your passion or achieve a cherished
dream? Do you believe that other people can experience the good things of life,
or simply be happy, but not you? These patterns of thinking are as much of a
burden as a sack of rocks tied to your back.
Listen to these words from Darwin P. Kingsley: "You have powers you never
dreamed of. You can do things you never thought you could do. There are no
limitations in what you can do except the limitations of your own mind."
Certain limitations are a part of life. We may see those that are physical, but
mental limitations are more easily hidden. When you get rid of the limiting
burdens you have been carrying, you'll discover powers you never dreamed of.
You'll do things you never thought you could do. And you'll be free.
© 2001 Steve Goodier
lifesupport-subscribe@topica.com
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