Break Out

I am often gobsmacked.
This morning in bed I was thinking about it being important to see myself as I wanted to be, rather than maybe the way I am.  I am totally thankful for the way I am, but as a mate of mine says, “he is just trying to hustle up a living like the rest of us.”
Yet I was thinking about boxes and how the saying is, “they think outside the box.”  I reckon it is important I stay within the confines of a box but a bigger box than I may have limited myself too.
By a box I mean regulations for living.  I saw a couple of kids excitedly declare a game was on.  It was soccer.  One declared there were no rules.  I thought to myself that is a recipe for disaster.  To me there always needs to be rules, but they may be different to the ones in place.  I believe that is how rugby was born and inspired the phrase when describing its birth “the boy who ran with the ball.”  It became, not a case of “no rules,” but “different rules.”
I think one of the most inhibiting phrases is, “we are doing it this way because we have always done it that way.”  To adhere to that for me is to make a box with a wall of concrete.  It is to make what may be transitory, permanent.
What amazed me this morning is something I read in the light of what I was thinking about.  It was a quote from a Wallace Wattles (much of who’s thought I have trouble with).  It was quoted in the James Clear email and said, “Do not merely think that you are going to become great; think that you are great now. Do not think that you will begin to act in a great way at some future time; begin now. Do not think that you will act in a great way when you reach a different environment; act in a great way where you are now. Do not think that you will begin to act in a great way when you begin to deal with great things; begin to deal in a great way with small things.”
I guess all I am trying to say, in an imperfect way, is I should not limit myself to what has been, and what is the upper limit of family expectations.  It is not about thinking of myself in a prideful arrogant way, but thinking of myself taking hold of the possibilities of what could be rather than limiting myself to an unnecessary limiting confine.