Why do you stay in prison when the door is so wide open?

RUMI

When your world feels so oppressive and the circumstances are overwhelming, you are always afforded alternatives…. Yet in many cases, most of us do not opt for any of them. Why is that?

The events of our lives, are in part of our making, and are in part, of forces and variables outside of our own control. Those that we can modify, alter or combat, we should be willing to take on with full determination to set our life course back on track. Those that we cannot, we must either accept, leave or find new methods for dealing with.

Surprisingly, there are many variables that are opportune, that people in crisis do not opt for, out of fear, intimidation or ignorance. A battered spouse has hotlines that will connect them with help to escape the hell in which they are living, yet, surprisingly, most battered spouses do not opt for these. They stay around and are beaten until they end up in a hospital, where third parties may intervene.

We may find ourselves in a proverbial prison in our work world, education experiences, internships and other, that are so tortuous as to make us realize we must extricate ourselves from these variables as quickly as is possible.

The prison door is always wide open, even if some of the repercussions that come with leaving the prison are dangerous, onerous or problematic, at least.

So why do we stay?

Is the fear of the unknown more overwhelming to most people than suffering daily with the known? Does the continual bombardment of instigation and antagonistic stimuli cause a numbness that precludes one’s own ability to see the prison for what it is?

If your negative emotions are on full alert, you are in a prison. If you are feeling continually trapped by circumstances and your heart longs to be elsewhere, you are in a prison. If you cannot understand that you have all that you need to move forward, at least one step at a time, towards the prison door, then you need to seek guidance from someone who has a clear perspective and inquire what you might be doing to extricate yourself from variables that are imprisoning you.

Happy Tuesday!

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Written by Brian Weiner
When I was 5 years old, I discovered that the lemon tree in the backyard + dixie cups + water and sugar and I was in business. I have been hooked on that ever since. In 1979, I borrowed $14,000 to create a brand new product... photographic greeting cards with no text on the inside, called Paradise Photography. That was the start of The Illusion Factory. Since then, The Illusion Factory has been entrusted by all of the major studios and broadcasters with the advertising and marketing of over $7 billion in filmed, live, broadcast, gaming, AR, VR and regulated gaming forms of entertainment, generating more than $100 Billion in revenue and 265 awards for creativity and technology for our clients. When I took a break from film school at UCLA to move to Hawaii, my mother did not lecture me. Instead, she took 150 of her favorite aphorisms and in her beautiful calligraphy, wrote them artistically throughout a blank journal. That is the origin of the Lessons from the Mountain series. Since then, on my journeys to the top of a mountain to watch the sunrise, I have spent countless hours contemplating words of wisdom from the sages of all races, genders and political persuasions, constantly accumulating the thoughts to guide me on my life path. I hope you enjoy my books. Please let me know your thoughts, as I highly value your feedback!