Barriers

Barriers

Not being able to function “normally” can be soul-darkening! 

We just came through a major, sanity-challenging floor renovation project carried out in the midst of three historic Polar Vortices, and haven’t yet completely recovered.  Three weeks of preparation included moving all the furniture from 6 rooms into the basement and garage, severely compromising the primary functionalities of ALL these spaces.  Then the weather made it unconscionably prohibitive to have free-ranging access to essential tools (never mind clean underwear!) – or to open windows to clear the air from dust and industrial solvents used or generated in the process – or to the great outdoors for heavy-duty crafting and waste disposal operations.  We spent 6 days and nights in a motel – with a traumatized cat, running back and forth to keep the project going as expeditiously as possible.

The process of “recalculating” and re-routing every element of daily operations to accommodate “The Project” was exhausting – not counting the work, itself.

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Debra was having trouble getting all her work done.  She was increasingly failing to meet the 30-day turn-around benchmark for processing travel paperwork for the management team.  She, nonetheless, liberally involved herself in much less compelling activities. 

The travel paperwork, it turned out, had become a barrier unto itself -- a tremendous millstone around her neck.

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We are, by nature, drawn to unfettered, free-ranging activity – preferably involving immediate gratification – and barriers are anathema.  We resist doing or responding to anything that threatens the “natural flow” of our lives – particularly as we deem it should be.  We exceed speed limits, roll through STOP signs, procrastinate in doing our homework, accumulate debt, become delinquent in paying our bills, are not disposed to limiting our food, beverage and/or recreational drug choices, and vigorously rebel against any and all authority. 

But, curiously, our free-ranging behavior creates more barriers!

Insisting on “Doing our own thing our own way”, and putting ourselves personally in charge of our own universe severely limits the size of our universe

and truncates opportunity in the universe at large.

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It turns out that BARRIERS are an essential part of life, and overcoming barriers is what life is all about. 

"The brick walls are not there to keep us out; the brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something."
- Randy Pausch

So we have to be able to function amid restrictions of all kinds, become proficient in overcoming barriers, and – by ALL means – stop putting barriers in our own way.  Whatever OTHER business we’re in, we’re in the business of knocking down and leaping over barriers.  As so many have found, inordinately large barriers and/or inordinately large numbers of barriers of any size are soul-darkening.   Let’s start knocking down some barriers – particularly those of our own making – and brighten up the place!  Quartermaster