156. recognize the walls

We are a unique species, in that we build our own prisons. So prideful of their design, we strictly guard them with our beliefs and actions. Anything from a thought process, a dietary regimen, to a habitual routine become a way of life that we build walls around. Purposeful as it may be, it’s still a box many of us fail to realize we’ve created for ourselves.

Some of us can become so focused on achieving something that we completely block out anything that doesn’t serve the end result. It’s a gift and a curse, because while that laser-like focus will most likely deliver us to what we’re after, we lose the input that makes life what it is. We can get so locked into something that we forget that it was our adventurous spirit and curiosity that first allowed us to discover the very thing our world revolves around now.

We shouldn’t be afraid to periodically step away so that we can come back and rediscover the thing we love so much, seeing it with a fresh perspective, and perhaps gaining a new respect for the thing we so cherish in the process. The real path to discovering what we’re after, as Proust said, “consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” We all need to reserve the ability to step away sometimes or else we will lose the capacity to see the prison we’ve created by no longer being able to recognize the walls.