Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Coloring outside the boundaries


We have all been young once right? and somewhere in time...we were drawing at school, be it stick figures or a full blown Picasso creation. Yet as we learn to color, we are given empty images and we have to color them in. As a child new to the universe, our world is full of wonderment. People stop to hear the crazy things that can come out of a five year old child and they get retold, so the child tries harder to be more crazier next time to get more attention and more love. Its the same with coloring, kids just color how they want...they don't see the images as the boundaries of their coloring, they color till they feel its enough.

As the child grows, we slowly start to suffocate its free spirit, and try to rule it. The boundaries start to become defined. The wings of imagination become clipped, the wonderment and incessant questions start to cease, a spirit is stifled. Alas, there comes the generelisations: An "A" student, a geek and many other names to keep people the way we think they should be, and when you give that young person to color - they do it within the boundaries.

Those are the lessons that are taken into adulthood. Keep your head in, don't stand out too much, do what you have to do so that you can do what you want to do, and from then every moment of your life has a manual on what should happen. It is amazing how many of us keep with this status quo. We still listen to that faraway voice that says: don't color outside the boundaries. Yet we don't still play with the same dolls or fit in the same clothes, we grow, and we accept that we change.

A time has to come that the mindset has to change. Its easy to stand with a crowd, it takes courage to stand alone. Standing alone requires you to be comfortable with yourself, re-establishing the boundaries, freeing the yearnings so long locked up and assuming the absurd. That maybe you are not the only one struggling, that maybe by getting to know yourself, you not only get the feel good factor but you also allow others the possibility of trying to do the same.

I think its neither black nor white. Its not gray either. Its a rainbow of colors. There are no boundaries, no shape and no form. Don't walk - run. Don't smile - laugh your heart out. DO  all the things that you ever wanted to do, right now, today: because that is all you've got. Re-define the boundaries for you and color them as you see fit. 

2 comments:

  1. Boundaries, sometimes our own parents or guardians were the reason of those boundaries, they were busy telling us to not be like so and so's child, to make sure that we get to the top of the classes, sleep on time and all the other things... sometimes, it was because of this that we were forced to redirect the routes we were originally taking... and then once you are all grown up, you sit and wonder, was this the path i was realy supposed to come? How come i dont feel like i beleong here. Only few can realize that they were led there by people who "wished them well" but didnt have a clue of the direction we wanted to take... and then have the courage to go back and find the opportunity to redefine the paths to take... it takes courage, might and determination... only a few can do that...

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  2. WOW!! So i am making sense, because that is what I meant to say, yet no matter what somewhere in time we need to find our own path and live our life and our dreams for ourselves, life as we know it will end, then what? I agree it takes courage and determination...and you have just inspired on something ;)

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