A couple years ago had you asked me two things I never would enjoy doing it would have been an easy answer of watching sports and reading books. Both things to me were boring and I didn’t have the attention span for them.
Fast forward two years and ask me the same thing, and I can tell you almost every single player on the nuggets team as well as their position. I own two nuggets sweatshirts and along side being to a game with Ricky, watched almost every single game on tv( until corona virus put a stop to that). I also could show you a list of the 24 books I read last year and all of the ones that I’ve enjoyed this year so far as well as recommend a book I think you’d enjoy.
Today I found myself reflecting on these things, wondering what changed. Thinking about how in 2018 I had read 4 books and never watched a single nuggets game to where I am today.
And then it dawned on me, the answer was much simpler than I thought. I stopped putting myself in a box. I stopped telling myself what I was or wasn’t based off of what I had always known.
I began to allow myself to evolve and to change, to try new things and to discover what I love. Where as before I easily could have told you that I never liked sports or wasn’t athletic so therefore I wouldn’t like watching sports on tv. I didn’t like sitting still and have a short tension span so therefore I wouldn’t like reading. I didn’t follow through on goals I made and so if I told myself I would read more books I knew I wouldn’t actually.
I began to change my mindset, allowing myself the freedom to try things and to explore my interests. And slowly but surely I found myself doing things that I never would have thought I would enjoy or be able to follow through with. I watched all the marvel movies in order, I followed through with writing 100 letters in a month. I have started to enjoy cooking- even got a meat thermometer and cooked pork chops for the first time.
All of this to say, that the boxes we put ourselves in often times are only inhibiting us from truly living and thriving. A flower put beneath a box will soon wilt from lack of sunshine and oxygen and in the same way we can thrive if we are constantly forcing ourselves to stay the same.
It makes me think of Matthew 5:14 “ “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.”
How often do we limit ourselves to what we know or by the assumption that we will never change.
What boxes have you categorized yourself with and what are you going to do about breaking free from them? The world needs your light and it needs all that you have to offer.
Beauty blooms when your heart is allowed the space to be free and fearless.
Rose and Thorn 