Boundary Crossings

“I’ve never come this far before.”

You’ve been trying to punch through a personal limit. There’s been a wall that kept you on this side of a change, and you’ve been trying your best to tear it down, to get to the other side.

Maybe it’s a limiting belief.
Maybe it’s family history.
Maybe it’s because of the culture you were brought up in.
Maybe it’s a label, maybe it’s a category, maybe it’s an identity thing.

If I told you that progress isn’t linear, you’d know exactly what I mean, because despite your efforts, you’re stuck on this side of a boundary.

And then you cross it.

—

In the stages of grief, there’s a point where there are no efforts that can get you past the feeling of loss. You’ve tried renegotiating, you’ve tried rationalizing it. You get to a sort of numbness, a valley that you can’t climb out of on your own.

And then something surprising happens. The last major part of the process is a bit of a gift that your body gives to you. It’s called the great cry, and it’s the gift of release. After a time of numbness, you suddenly feel, and you feel it all at once. After being subject to the loss, you now feel freed.

You’ve crossed a boundary, seemingly by letting go.

—

The world of innovation is filled with bulldozer types. Inventors who have discovered the power of force to break through all barriers alike. They mistake merit for luck, effort for risk and reason for bias. They push through walls effortlessly, but they also leave a mess behind for others to clean up. Their worldview is linear, they see all problems solvable with obvious approaches, and they blame others for their impatience.

But not you.

You’re moved by other people. You exert emotional labor. You see your empathy as your gift. You do push through, you do go through your own personal limits. You surpass yourself, and you do so in the service of others and their own need for progress, so you can serve. And when others are going through a barrier of their own, you make sure to be there with them as they do.

When you finally say “I’ve never come this far before”, you’ll be in good company.