"Limits are Ours"... Rolly A. Chabot

It has been another of those crazy nights where sleep has eluded the mind and the body is feeling somewhat dull. It has now entered the hopped up on coffee state where I have had enough and yet require more because the day still has to unfold. One of those nights where the mind refuses to shut down. Of course it may have something to do with the extra long snooze I had yesterday.

I will just call it the Old Fart Syndrome and be glad knowing I do not have to go too work anymore and if the body gets to tired I can grab a catnap somewhere along the following hours. You see I was born a nighthawk. It is inherent with too many years of working shift work, far too many years of grabbing sleep whenever and where ever I could, silly me right.

Welcome one and all to the Fireside, here you will find a comfortable place to rest. Help yourself to the coffee, tea and anything you like as my home is yours for as long as you desire to stay. Should I doze off myself I apologize in advance, find a grammar or spelling area and I will plead the fifth and say I was just testing you. Please make yourself at home and lets see where this takes us today. Please say hello, feel free to comment and above all else... know that you are loved.

Have you ever taken a look or considered our limitations in life. For that matter who has set them for you. What if you had no limits in your mind, what if you could accomplish anything and everything you ever wanted to do? It would be fascinated would it not.

Lets take a look at limitations and why they may be there. I am not talking of why we cannot jump off of towers such as this and not get hurt. I mean we all know that is silly right... well I certainly hope so. Come on get off the ladder and back here to reality and a nice warm fire.

There are some obvious reasons why we cannot all be highly educated professionals such as Doctors, Lawyers or Politicians... well let me take the politician one out of there, I think maybe I should strike that comment all together... Sorry my delete button is broken.

We have all been given a calling in life, something we desired to become or been mentored by someone who influenced our education and success in life. It is a wonderful thing to have examples to follow. In the same token we need to look at our dreams which have been crushed or forgotten and hopefully find the source and or reasons we missed out.

The mind of a child resembles and acts very much like a sponge, soaking in all it can absorb, it has very few filters to sort through what is true or false. The child depends on adults to help guide and direct and point out the dangers. Hopefully they have people in their lives who teach them the difference.

Sadly there are some things in life that filter through and remain. Words spoken by those whom you have been taught to trust and believe as they are the professionals. Lets take an example of the small town teacher, drawing close to retirement after many years of service. She is well respected by her peers, parents and most students, she has earned the right to call herself an educator of young minds. Well at least everyone is led to believe she had.

Lets take a peek into the young mind of someone who believed what she was teaching and doing was all good because he was told so. He is the child at the back of the class who struggled in her class. There was no loving or compassion to this child who grades began to suffer, yet their was no extra effort to reach out and help him. It was as though he had been singled out right from the first day he entered her classroom. He was of the wrong material and it was as though he would be the target of her frustration the entire year. It was like it was her mandate to ridicule him at his expense in front of all his peers, to point him out as being a failure. So much so she failed him that year and he was forced to sit through another year of her torment. Sadly it was those same jabs, same ridicules which set him up for much failure in his later life. Why because he believed them, because no one would listen to his pleas. Why, because she was the professional and she had the credentials to prove it.

You see I know that child far to well, I know his failures much better than most people. I also know he was told he was a failure for so long throughout his latter years that he became ridiculed, was always the last to be picked for a team. He was the child who became angry and rebellious. He was the child who had accepted limits which had been set for him. He bought the lie he would never become successful at anything. He was the child that lived deep inside of me for many years, he would be the child who grew up inside of me and allowed me to live through years of pain because of the belief system he had accepted as the truth.

I do not mean too turn this into a pity party by any means or blame this one person for the failures I have seen but more so want to point out the fact, we as adults play a huge part on shaping children and yes even people in our lives. A reminder to us all, we need to be ever aware of what we say and do with others.

I solely take the blame upon myself for many of the failures and the life which I led. It was all my doing and it is a burden I carry. I guess the question is would I change things if I could, most certainly. It is interesting a number of years ago I went back to the small town I was raised in and found myself sitting on my motorcycle in front of her home. I decided it was time to confront the demon so too speak. I knocked and a disapproving lady answered the door. Sadly it was not my old teacher, but I learned she had ended up in a nursing home and had suffered for years with memory loss and eventually a horrible death from cancer.

Forgiveness sometimes can come at a heavy cost as was in this case. It was as though I had been cheated out of having my say and be able to share what she had done to me. It was forgiveness that would come and remove much of the untruth I had come to believe all those years. It is still with sadness today I think of all the anger and misery she must have lived with all those years. It must have been a horrible feeling to be so frustrated and yet know what she had done to the few select she decided needed to be treated as I was.

It is not I who can judge, I will leave it to one far greater than I. The choice to live in freedom and not anger is mine alone to make. It is my faith that allows me to make the choice.

So where do limits truly exist ?... when you look at it they exist only in our minds. It is that simple my friends. If you have the time, the ambition, the desire and the funding, you can be whatever you want to be in life.

I left school in grade 9 as I had fallen so far back, it was impossible for me to catch up. At the time a grade 12 was respected nearly as much as a university degree would be today. I worked and struggled for a few years, eventually I completed my grade 12 by night school and correspondence. It was a place I set my sights. At the age of 42 I attended college an obtained several degrees in a field that carried me through all my working years. I have never stopped learning, I suppose I had many years to catch up on.

At the end of the day my friends you can do anything you set your heart and mind to doing or becoming. If nothing else prove to yourself you can do what ever you set your mind on. Own up to your failures, learn from them and move on with a new found belief you can do it.

If I have learned anything in life the most important learning experience you can have is to love others and hopefully along the way you can once again love yourself... Hugs to all and thank you for sitting in at the Fireside. Feel free to leave a comment and share as you feel, this is a safe place...

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