Obstacles

Day 109. Obstacles.

After my almost 53 years here on earth, I've realized we are all self-destructive to an extent. We want perfection in others, yet they must accept us without conditions. We refuse to change, yet those who want to share our lives must be willing to adapt to moods we can't even predict ourselves. We place requirements on each other, but when ours aren't met we raise our fists to the air and scream "but he was so close to being Mr. Right." The very obstacles we build to protect ourselves only succeed in isolating us.

He's changing. Every day more remote, protected, distant. He builds fests now for the soulmate he hasn't found, bricking wall and maze and mountain fortress, dares her to find him at the hidden center of them all Here's an A in self-protection from the one in the world he might love and who might someday love him. Richard Bach, The Bridge Across Forever.

Having been hurt in the past, we still throw everything we have into the "next great thing" that comes along. Be it a new career, a new friends, or a new relationship, we leap headfirst just knowing this will be "the one." We plunge off the windowsill of the 75th floor, arms stretched wide to capture as much as we can on the way to earth. Yes, we know the ground is coming up soon, we're zooming towards it at a thousand miles a minute.

That's why we throw out the obstacles. They'll slow the fall. You didn't think they just popped up on their own, did you? Nah, you did that yourself. Change the rules mid-flight. Add some conditions. And just in case that's not enough for someone to overcome, we "accidentally" forget to tell them about the changes. Then when they fail us, it's not "our fault." "They should've known" becomes our reasoning for why things went wrong, why the dream was broken.

Repeating that mistake costs us. Sometimes small prices, sometimes great things. Until we clear the path, until all the rules are published, until we stop isolating ourselves, we will fail. We can't hope for anything to be different if we keep sabotaging the future by hanging the albatrosses of the past around its neck.

Lesson One Hundred Nine: Think about carrying a chainsaw instead of a hammer. Cut down the fences instead of building more. ALL IN doesn't mean "everyone inside the castle." It means being the princess that lowers the drawbridge for the knight that's come to save her from the enemy within.

621 to go...