The importance of having friends who can inspire your introspection should never be taken for granted. Everyone and everything serves a purpose. Every experience, every thought, every action. One thing to consider during your journey is your ability to be conscious during what is happening around you. Processing your feelings, understanding them and then deciding what to do after the fact. If you were recently denied a job offer, how did that make you feel? why did you feel that way? how are you going to move on from these feelings?
I am grateful to have a multitude of strong, reflective and progressive people around me. People who often times challenge my way of thinking, support me and most importantly push me past my limits. In Jamaica, there is a saying that goes, "Don't hang your basket where you cyan reach it", in translation it is a reminder to stay within your limits, to not push yourself into a position you can not handle. But might I ask, what happens when we consciously decide to go past these physical and mental limits?
The answer to this question is subjective, we each have various outcomes depending on what we perceive our actual limit to be. Whether it being unable to work two jobs, starting a new business, seeking a promotion, learning a new skill, focusing more on your individual develop or even just learning to say NO more often. This metaphorical basket of limits that life has given us should never be confined to our mental or physical space, here is why.
As humans we are virtually limitless, anything that we think cannot be done most definitely has a solution. A few years ago, while doing a presentation for my Creative thinking and problem course, I challenged the room to fly a paper plane from one end of the classroom to the next(approximately 25 feet). I stood aside for 10 minutes watching paper planes be built in different shapes as everyone developed their own strategy of how they would get the plane from point A to point B successfully. After watching frustration and having everyone give up and deem the activity impossible. I patiently folded my own aircraft, held it in my hand proudly and walked from one end of the classroom to the next, the room erupted in laughter and cheer. See the issue with standardized thinking/limited baskets is that we do not ACTIVELY think to challenge norms. We often times fear outside our comfort zones because we do not know what happens beyond it.
Having people around you who aspire to inspire and challenge your way of thinking are often times most beneficial to our selves, not every challenge is meant to be confrontational or even a bigger issue on the horizon. As adults, as developing minds(regardless of age) it is imperative that we acknowledge the power of changing just about any status quo and having people around you to facilitate your SELF development. During this ongoing process in your life, it is ok to turn heads, to be considered outlandish or even ridiculed. Your dreams and goals aren't everyone else' and you cannot force them to see this. However, when it becomes a reality there is no denying what is and what has become.
Before I go, I would like for you to think of some baskets you have hung in your life as it pertains to school, your career, your versions of normal and routine are they still in your reach? What if we moved them just a bit further?
