Here is one of my favorite stories, one among those that started me on the path of positive, “Creative Thinking.” It made me “think,” it pushed me to reflect about human behavior, about my own behavior. I hope it will do the same for you.
A lady, wanting to change the water in her goldfish bowl, transfers the tiny pretty creatures into the bathtub and keeps them there for some time. She believes the goldfish will greatly enjoy the wider space. She expects they will scatter and happily swim around the tub while she is cleaning their bowl. But when she comes back to fetch them, she does not find them scattered all around the large tub. Surprise! All her goldfish are grouped in a corner of the tub, circling around and covering an area as big as their fishbowl.
Why did I find this story so interesting and intriguing? Because, in my opinion, it can perfectly symbolize human nature. The goldfish accepted – as their “sole” reality – the width of their bowl and never imagined the possibility of being granted a bigger environment to swim in. Don’t you do the same when you accept the limits that you believe are your own? They are not your own! They are not even there! You have either created them or accepted the confines others have put all around you. Have you ever wondered if these limits are illusory or if they could be overcome?
I hear you say, “What limits? What confines? Nothing is binding me!” Really? Just think for a moment of the many times you said, or just thought, “I can’t do this.” The instant you say or think the word “can’t,” you immediately put yourself in a position of disadvantage. You are not in “pole position,” which is the most favorable place at the start of a race. What race? The race of your own life.
You voluntarily put yourself in a state of mental – and consequently psychological — disadvantage. As a painting is the result of the colors and shades the artist used, so is your life the outcome of the words you usually think or utter. Therefore your human experience will unfold according to the space, the length, the height, the width of your horizon. Is your horizon narrow? You will therefore remain quietly resting in your comfortable lifestyle, without wondering about what could be found around the corner. You will continue to be the way you are and – most probably – you shall never make any big progress. Also this, of course, is an acceptable choice, just like the frog’s choice… the frog who is happy, and always will be, living at the bottom of the well he believes to be his world.
But another possibility is available. While accepting your actual situation, you can also start asking yourself questions and wonder, “Is there something to be found around the corner?” You face the view you have always seen, stare into the distance and say: “What is there at the farthest side of the horizon?”
The athlete who does not try to overcome the records established by his predecessor will always be mediocre. He will be a “good” runner or a “good” swimmer, but nothing more. Excellence can be attained only when you dare to go a little further, when you become aware of your own abilities and you listen to your intuition, the voice of your true self which tells you, “Try, go on, endeavor, you can do it!”
There are many goals you can aspire to, material, moral or spiritual, according to your nature and to your present needs. Mental narrowness, i.e. the incapability to see beyond your own nose, or the outright rejection of any idea that appears to be new or different, that seems to defy traditional beliefs, is a characteristic of the ignorant person.
I believe that the word “ignorance” does not only mean “not knowing”, but it mainly means a voluntary negation of mankind’s capability to overcome its limits. You will be capable of soaring above mediocrity only when you are fully aware that you can truly do it. Not before!
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