Life never let’s up with its curriculum; there is always more to learn, more to understand, more understandings to topple under the weight of new knowledge, and there is always change.

Every choice we make brings some moment of change. This morning I am ‘on call’ at work…does it change my experience of Saturday? Maybe. How much of any perceived change is truly due to ‘being on call’? How much may be due to the limits I, myself, set in some arbitrary way, based on my own assumptions? What is choice? I’ve been studying this, lately, in a deep and I hope meaningful way.  (Books are powerful, I am currently reading Emotional Intimacy, which delightfully enough is not at all ‘self-help-y’ and is very ‘science-y’.)

Relationship drama, every day life, and my commitment to ‘being a student of life’ put my focus on limits and boundaries this morning. For the sake of easy discussion, let’s go with a shared understanding that a ‘boundary’ is something we set, willfully, based on our understanding of our needs and values? Let’s also agree, then, that a ‘limit’ is something we have the understanding is imposed upon us by our physical world, our resources, or our perception of the boundaries placed by another? So, simply put, we set boundaries, and we face limits. Easy enough for our purposes, yes?  I watch the aquarium waking up for the day, and contemplate limits and boundaries. I set boundaries for their fishy lives by placing them in a glass container from which they can not escape, surrounded as they are by impenetrable walls, because I do not care to have water everywhere and fish flopping about unpredictably and dying in the open air. For them, those glass walls are the limits of their world, beyond which they can see, but can’t venture forth. So, limits and boundaries have a relationship in some instances. I find this worth contemplating.

How we define ourselves, and what we accept as our limitations, changes what we can choose.

I don’t see much to argue with if I apply these observations to relationships in my life. I have my boundaries, and all my friends, family, loves, lovers, and associates of all sorts, have theirs as well. How firmly any one of us insists on them varies. I find that I have limits and limitations in life, and I don’t know anyone personally who doesn’t. Something about the finite nature of things, and entropy, perhaps. When I set boundaries, they become someone else’s limits – but we are also limited by circumstances, resources – and choices. Strangely, I’ve begun to learn, it is my choices that are often the biggest hurdle I face when I look at my life through the filter of ‘my limits’. More of those limits are self-imposed than I understood, and often in a peculiarly arbitrary way. I choose to understand that ‘I can’t’ do or have something, or go someplace, or enjoy some experience – and later, on closer examination, I can see where I chose to place those limits on myself, and often based on erroneous assumptions, or worse still, as a bold act of self-sabotage. Choice embodies change – and freedom, and wide open vistas of opportunity.

As a fun exercise, take something you regularly deny yourself on the basis of “I can’t…” and just for the sake of some intellectual fun, rephrase it as “I can ___, if I ____.”  What would it really take? “I can’t be president” becomes “I can be president, if I run for office and am elected.” Wow. Just that simple. By now you’ve notice that I omitted the ‘because’ statement that is the heart and soul of self-imposed limits. “I can’t become president because I’m a woman and we’re just not ready for that as a nation.” is pretty damned disheartening, and at a glance can’t be easily overcome.  I could stop right there, and so often in life I have.  Frankly, this is an uphill battle I fight daily, these days.  Those self-imposed limits have no actual substance. They aren’t ‘real’ in the sense that the laws of physics seem real. They are not provably ‘true’ – they are only as ‘true’ as I accept them to be.  Defying those limits through force of will works for some people; great moral, political, and emotional battles have been fought and won through force of will alone. It’s a hard fight, and even emotional wars have casualties. Perhaps there is some gentler opportunity in simply changing our operating assumptions about life, about ourselves, about our choices? I’m just saying it is worth thinking about.

Why are so many people ready to place extraordinary limits on themselves through unsupported assumptions? Is it simply emotionally easier to say that “I can’t, because…” than it is to say “I won’t”?  “I can’t” means I don’t have to be accountable for my values, my boundaries, or my choices – it isn’t my fault! ‘Will’ doesn’t work that way, and I am learning what a crippling effect it has on my will to undercut myself again and again with “I can’t” when “I won’t” is more honest and true to my values, and boundaries. Allowing myself those “I won’t” moments also pushes me to examine why. That has to be pretty important if I’m going about throwing my will around!

Every day life these days pushes my limits, questions my choices, challenges my understanding of my boundaries, and insists that I understand, redefine, and use my will in a deliberate and adult way; accountable for my actions, and choices, and prepared to speak to my choices rationally.  I have some difficult choices ahead of me. Somehow, a quiet Saturday morning, a good latte, and watching the fish swim makes it all seem so much clearer; it really is about limits, boundaries, and choices. I am ready to understand the difference between ‘willful’ and ‘disagreeable’, and I am ready to change my world.