FEARS AND EXCUSES: Breaking the Chains of Lack

A prisoner knows that he is imprisoned because he can see the bars.

But what happens when there are no bars?

What happens when the prison is built inside the mind?

What happens when the door is open but the prisoner is convinced that it is locked?

That is the tragedy of fear.

Fear does not always scream.

Sometimes it whispers.

It says:

Wait.

You are not ready.

What if you fail?

What will people say?

Someone else is already doing it.

You do not have enough money.

Your family has never done anything like that.

People like you do not succeed at that level.

Try later.

Perhaps next year.

Perhaps when conditions improve.

And because the voice sounds reasonable, we obey it.

Years can disappear this way.

A person can spend ten years preparing to begin.

Another can spend twenty years explaining why beginning was impossible.

Then one morning the person looks backwards and discovers something painful:

The greatest obstacle was not always the absence of opportunity.

Sometimes it was the repeated decision not to act.