Why Do We Struggle Rising to the Top?

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What causes someone to stay where they are, to never Change?

What is it that makes us pull downward on our own attempts to rise to the top?

What keeps us from proliferating?

From doing what suits us?

What is this chain?

Is it our fears…or could it be something else?

Could it be disinterest?

Could it be the trick of our mind to do what we think is right, not what we think is loved? Could we be confusing love with the only thing we’ve known as love?

Is it something more boxed up, more presentable, more recognizable?

Is our chain made up of the reasons why we cannot rise, or is it reasons why we must do something acceptable?

Are we the very fools that fasten the cuff around our own feet?

How often do we reason too much and reach too little?

How often are we getting closer to our goals, not by setting ourselves free, but by adding another link in our tether?

Do we justify the cuts and bruises from the strain against our own metal shackles, deeming them a false proof of our love and commitment to our trade?

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What is our freedom really made of?

Is it something we cannot see? Is it because we’re still reaching into the void?

Or…is it something we won’t see?

Is it because of what it will mean if we accept it?

Is it what we will lose if we remove the cuff, and have unlimited liberation to rise?

Is it the dark part of ourselves who have the odd satisfaction to suffer?

To know the comfort of misery and obscurity…more than the discomfort of responsibility and identification?

Drowning shadows…or unshielded shallows?

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When I was writing this, an art came to my mind, as one usually does when I’m writing.

I imagine an ocean fully spectrumed from the darkest deeps to the clearest shallows. And there are millions of people outstretched, reaching out toward the surface from the dark of the bottom. But they are individually chained to the deep, endless shadows by something none of us can see; the “invisible anchor” that restrains us.

The anchor is too deep. The pressure is too high, and the fear of massive monsters keeps us from swimming down to do something about it.

And the more you raise your eyes to the clarity of the shallows above, the fewer people you see. A few have broken free, yet still carry the weight of their bindings; destined still to struggle up against the weight pulling them down. Fewer still have reached the top, fully free, capable of pure clarity and the warmth of the beating sun.

We fight so hard to be something, sometimes we may not realize that our freedom isn’t in our strength to swim, but the anchor that holds us. The purpose is in finding what that anchor is….freeing ourselves from a restraint we denied even existed.

Our individual weights are so unique, yet oddly, so familiar.

It’s so human…

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I think this is life’s journey, in a dark sort of way.

It’s not the oxygen we’re after — we’ve adapted gills — but the lessened pressure, the clear aqua surface, and the freedom to be fully within ourselves among the waves.

You know those days that you feel so restless, you can’t imagine what could possibly stop you?

It’s not your work ethic, your willingness to learn, or your creativity that’s stopping you. It’s your fear of thinking you’re wrong. That no matter what you do, it will never be enough. That if the world saw how human you really are, they’d burn you in Hellfire.

Believe it or not…that’s your chain.

Truth and Love, Reader.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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