Of Limits and Motivation

I would like to begin this one by contemplating the concept of limits. When we talk about limits, we refer to something like a wall that stands between us and our objectives. this wall is not always perpendicular, that is non- scalable, but it might just be a steep incline, causing a lot of trouble. What varies from person to person is exactly this, the inclination of the wall and its height. For some, it is just a small barrier of a few bricks which they overcome on bare foot. for some, it is the mightiest climb they have ever come up against and shall require all the effort to overcome. But alas, for some, it is the dead end beyond which they cannot see.

It is exactly this approach that dooms the individual. THERE IS NOTHING CALLED A LIMIT. ITS A FIGMENT OF YOUR IMAGINATION. Wherever there is a wall, there has to be something beyond it. Consider common situations from everyday life. When do we feel the most thirsty? When we can see water but cannot have it. This is a fine example of a mental limit. One lets the non attainability of the water to create a physical condition that hampers both their physical and mental performance at the situation. If one can simply accept, with concentration, that the water does not exist for them, one might just survive those crucial few moments more, which more often than not, are all it takes.

Take another example. If I tell you, to run up 20 floors, it might sound beyond your limits. But 20 floors means 40 flights of steps. taking the average flight of stairs to be 12 in number (the standard maximum), there are 480 steps in total to run up. Considering each stair to be 10 inches (high or wide), its gives us just 4800 inches, that is something close to 100 meters. Don’t you think you would last a 100 meter climb against gravity?

Its all about motivation. It depends on who lives up those flight of stairs. It depends on what shows through the crack in those walls. It needs to pull you through. It needs to make you go through the wall, if you’re a strong one and around the wall if you’re the clever one (and the wall a foolish one 😉 ). For some its materialistic gains, for some it is pressure or fear. But for a fortunate some, it is the thrill of overcoming one’s limits itself that drives them. This is motivation in its purest form and does not expect anything in return other than sheer satisfaction and contentment. To those who achieve this, they have my envious respect.

Mankind is a fascinating subject for observation. After what we have “achieved” in the fraction of time we have been around, it is outright stupidity to believe that we can have limits. Go Man! Show the universe what you are! or promptly vanish in a puff of logic!

Picture Courtesy: http://www.beyondlimits.org