Imagine being blindfolded and guided by the hand into a space and left alone with no ability to take off the blindfold. What would you do? Why of course start walking very slowly. What will ultimately happen? You will run into a wall.
Imagery is a great way to share a story that can have meaning. All of us leave our years of schooling being led into a room, essentially blindfolded not knowing where we are or will be. With little experience or no knowledge at what we might ultimately be good at or like.
Not knowing the dimensions of the room adds to the uncertainty. As we gain experience in the world. the room increases in size without us ever knowing it. By how much, ironically depends on us and how soon we find a wall.
Robotic vacuums find walls quickly. They turn, adjust their direction, and continue. We as humans are not that efficient. For most of us, we never find a wall because our steps are too small. The number of steps we choose to take are too few. The popular press calls this “staying in your comfort zone”.
Others find a wall and stop. Frustrated and disappointed they trace their steps backwards never understanding that they can turn in a different direction to see how far the next wall is. They create a story believing that the wall is real, present, and too strong to break through it.
Others find a wall, understand that they can change directions and forge on. Unfortunately, finding the next wall too soon. For these individuals, their room didn’t grow much because they did not learn, evolve and grow from their experiences or new knowledge. Their lives mirror more of a ball in a pinball machine while bouncing from wall to wall. Defining their lives by the busyness of each day. Never understanding the many directions they chose in order to evaluate their effectiveness.
Only a few, ever think back to how they got into this room. They didn’t pay attention to the fact that they walked into the room albeit being blindfolded. Very few of us ever consider that there is a hole in a wall that we could walk through. If only we could find it! Changing rooms entirely.
Sadly, our bodies only know the feeling of hitting a wall. Everything else is forgotten.
Hitting walls is where we can find the value in finding a wall. The more quickly the better. Walls provide us with valuable feedback that tell us we need to do something different. Small adjustments, though, simply might cause us to find our next wall quickly.
Only major adjustments or radical different choices can sometimes bring us into a room where the walls are much further apart. An entirely different room where hopeful possibilities live.
The world is much larger in a much larger room. Better opportunities may present themselves with each step we take. Wider perspectives thrive in larger rooms making us more aware of different options and helps us clarify the directions we choose.
Finding the hole in the room, after repeatedly finding the walls in our small room, requires a perseverence that we revere yet find hard to emulate.
In the end, while walls are forever present in our lives, it’s paying attention to how we react to them, what direction we go next, how many steps we take and being open to the possibility that changing rooms may give us the best chance to moving our lives forward.
This is how life works. Personal growth happens. And expanding perspectives thrive.