Three years ago I was commuting in bumper-to-bumper traffic when I saw a duck in the grass and felt jealous of its freedom. Yesterday my office was a cafe near the Sydney Opera House. Today I went off-roading in "the Australian bush", visited the largest deep space radio telescope in the southern hemisphere, and walked among wild kangaroos. Think outside the box. Release preconceived notions of reality. The heart can only stretch if the mind is willing to let go.
12 Comments
Webmentions
- Related Content by Tag
- Detachment
- Dreams
- Future
- Heart
- Mind
- Open-mindedness
- Possibility
- Reality
- Release
maybe I live outside the box a lot, since today was relatively normal for me. But I know there’s parts of me still inside the box. We all have our own boxes. Some are bigger than others
I was actually thinking, as I wrote this thought yesterday, that despite spending the day together you probably didn’t think it was all that unusual. As we discussed a bit last night, and as you mentioned above, I think our boxes are very much tied to the individual. I only observed yesterday’s activities (and those of the day before) in retrospect to three years ago through my own lens of life. For someone working in Sydney, or living in Canberra, the experiences would seem rather trivial.
It would be easy for me to believe that I have no boxes left to get rid of, but the truth is, as you said, we all have our own boxes and some are bigger than others. Perhaps there is always a ‘bigger box’.
“Release preconceived notions of reality. The heart can only stretch if the mind is willing to let go.”
It’s good to have a person out there to reassure what I have been contemplating is true, but how to achieve this? could you share your insights with us on how to release the perceived reality and how to let go? I am lost, I want to believe, I had my faith and lost it.
Great question, June! I’m not sure if I have an ‘answer’. For me, it was a process of recognizing that my beliefs about the world around me, and about what was possible for myself, were false. I asked myself, “Why do I believe this is true?”.
Our reality is defined by what we accept. If we challenge and question what we’ve accepted — if we risk testing our assumptions about reality — then, and only then, will we discover new realities. Nobody made big discoveries by holding onto preconceived ideas.
Everyone will have different ways of achieving this “release”. For me, it took several years of financial struggle, followed by a global financial crisis that forced me into bankruptcy, and then a release of possessions that made me realize freedom didn’t require ‘getting rich’ but rather ‘letting go’.
And upon “notice” of that duck was there an immediate tear in the fabric that overlaid your innate unbound freedom (only comparison I can think of is unlimited universe). And rather than repair the tear, you allowed it to continue to open as you moved towards what was exposed!
It wasn’t an immediate thing, Ricky, but rather something that took years to come to fruition. In fact, that experience with the duck was only something I remembered in retrospect and was able to recognize the important role it played in my overall journey to where I am now. Each experience stacked on top of the other until the whole collection nudged me forward, towards the edge, just a little more.
the duck might have been a ‘fairy’ or even the manifestation of a spirit guide, setting in motion the pathway you were meant to follow 😉
Most likely both. 😀
A few years age I was working in a factory where I would take my lunch break at a cemetery across the street. I worked there until one day on my lunch break I started to envy the dead people around me. So I quit.
Wow, now that’s one way to know it’s time to move on! I think if we find ourselves envying anything, it’s time to take investigating the reason seriously. Envy indicates we’re not happy with what we have, what we’re doing, or the choices we’re making. I believe as long as we’re alive, we have no reason to be settle with being unhappy.
Many of the thoughts you write about, I have found to be true in my life
I’m glad to hear that, Sue. I think we all share many common experiences throughout our lives.