[I was reading an essay by Jeanne Tessier Barone and felt that what she writes merits being published here. She and I think alike; in fact, to some extent, she could be another me. I have taken the liberty of adapting the content to my life and changing things to apply to me, and perhaps also changing parts of the writing and so the essay is not as the original, but her basic ideas and thought processes are there, which I wanted to give her credit for, especially, her style of posing questions and then answering them, which I have learned a lot from.]
A short while back, I read something the poet Rita Dove once wrote: "When the sky's the limit, how can you tell when you've gone too far?" That seems a bit hemmed in when your head is full of far-flung metaphors, like mine often is. That quote makes me feel contained, constrained by what struck me at first as a somewhat negative statement or idea: "When the sky's the limit, how can you tell when you've gone too far?"
But if you know anything about me, I love a challenge and living on the edge, so I pondered the quote awhile. You should know, by the way, that I have spent most of my life testing limits, my own and those imposed on me. I am a born questioner and limit-tester, so much so that I just can't hold it inside and often blurt out my questions - not meaning to cause dissention or disharmony - but with a desire to discuss… and well, test limits. At school and at the University, my teachers dispaired. As a child, I tested everything, even at the young age of two, when I nearly burned myself to death… After many operations and years in and out of the hospital, I started school, and became a dare-devil on wheels at age five, and whomever dared to challenge me got a match they would not soon forget - a small stick of a child, outwardly extremely feminine, but inwardly - a warrior!
So, faced with this limiting quote, this wrinkle in thought, I responded as any good questioner and limit-tester would; I went looking for answers to the questions that quote stirred up in me. Sure enough, when I was done, I was grateful for the question that I once thought was a wrinkle in thought - some seriously faulty thinking.
The questions that came up were:
"Who says the sky's the limit, anyway?"
"And, it is really the limit, or do we just think so?"
"And, how can we know a limit is truly a limit unless we test its edges with all our might?"
"And isn't it just as important or more so to know when we haven't gone far enough?"
"And what does it mean to go to far anyway?"
So who says the sky's the limit, anyway? This phrase comes from a contemporary of Shakespeare, a Spaniard named Miquel de Cervantes. I was delighted to learn of this because this meant that the saying was not meant to impose limits, but to challenge and push against them. The original phrase was by Cervantes was this: "No limits but the sky." I find that an oddly more positive phrase than how it now appears in modern usage "The sky's the limit." The phrase appeared in a novel by Don Quixote, which was first published about 1605. The timeless story of DonQuixote was made into a Broadway musical called Man of La Mancha about 40 years ago, with a song, famous at the time, called, "To Dream the Impossible Dream." Maybe you've heard of it?
Don Quixote was a man who saw a world beyond the limits the world itself sought to impose. In himself, an aging eccentric, he saw a brave knight errant seeking to rid the wrold of that which caused others harm. In a foolish and ignorant barber, he saw a brave companion for his quest. In a depised and self-despising prositute, he saw a beautiful woman waiting to be cherished. Don Quixote was a man without limits, who looked beyond what others called impossible and found rich and joyous possibilities. All those he encountered thought him mad; an unknowing fool.
So, in answer to the question: "Who said the sky's the limit anyway?" The answer is: A writer who sought to create a world seen through kinder and more redeeming eyes. about 400 years ago. At that time, of course, the sky had not yet been pierced through by rocket ships, probed by satellites, travelled across in metal birds by you and I, and studied in all its glorious and infinte detail by a massive telescope travelling through space.
The sky, rather, is limitless in possibilities and is defined as: "The expanse of air over a given point on Earth: the upper atmosphere." The sky, in other words, is nothing more than the air we breathe, and an illusion created by a certain lanlocked point of view.
Another writer, from the 1800s (Authur Schopenhauer) said that "Everyone takes the limits of her own field of vision for the limits of the world." We see the blue above and nothing beyond and we assume the sky's the limit. We see a structure, an institution, an attitude, a habit of being, and we assume it must be and always be so.
In the field of Communications, the power of self-fulfilling prophecies are taught: that human beings tend to enact or make real what they believe about themselves and others. One woman believes that, discrimination or not, gender and cultural barriers or not, there is still no limit to what she can attain if she pursues her goals with all her heart.
Another believes her world is a closed system in which women are hopelessly shut out and disenfranchised, and so have always been. The first woman builds a life of accomplishment with dignity and grace; the second woman builds a life of bitterness, recrimination, narrowness. (My feminine language applies to all people.)
So now we have an answer to the second question: Is the sky the limit, or do we just think so? We think it so. We are bound at every turn by the limits of our beliefs. They define what we think is real and what we ourselves will become. So we had best be careful, then, about what we believe. We had best create and hold beliefs that leave as much room as possible for us to be wrong, for us to expand and grow. We had best build worlds for ourselves that have few walls, and many windows and doors.
Are there no real limits in our lives, then? Aren't there limits we cannot change simply by believing? Of course there are. some persons struggle with terrible poverty. Some are differently abled in ways that make everyday life tasks difficult. Some carry burdens of abuse and experience that others will never know. Limits abound, but it is more how we think about them than what they are that will determine the quality of our lives. Writers Dominquez and Robin have said: "Once we're above survival level, the difference between prosperity and poverty lies simply in our degree of gratitude."
The third question facing us, then, is: How can we know our limits unless we test them? Here the answer is straightforward and simple: We can't. It is only through testing and pushing against the limits of our perceptions, experiences and culture that we can be a force for change; change our own circumstances and those of others. If we didn't test our limits, we would never walk, we would never grow, we would never fly.
So, the sky is not limits but endless possibilities, and it is we who perceive and impose limits where none exist, and if we do not test the limits of our perceptions and our abilities and our worlds, we will never know what lies beyond.
But now we have arrived at our fourth question: How do we know when we haven't gone far enough? Most of us are committed, hard-working people, aren't we? Isn't that far enough to go? No. How do we know, then, if we need to go farther? Here are some conclusions I've come to in my own search for an answer to this question:
If we do not engage in work for which we have a real passion and pursue our work passionately, we have not gone far enough. If we do not have a clear sense of direction and meaning in our lives, we have not gone far enough.
If we do not understand that our actions and words can have a lasting impact on the quality of human life, we have not gone far enough. If we don't hope and strive to make a positive difference in our world, if we are content with what we do and don't continually look to how we can be better persons, we are not going far enough.
If we haven't wholly loved another human being, if we don't at least try to recognize the good in everyone we meet, if we don't have times of real joy in our lives, then we have not gone far enough.
Life is too short and too precious not to live it with passion and pursue it with zeal. And your work is much too important to pursue with anything less than your total commitment.
And now we come to our last question: "What does it mean to go to far" I am sure we all remember when "going too far" meant having sex before marriage and I think we all know it doesn't mean that anymore. So what does it mean?
Have we gone too far if we try something new that fails? No.
On the contrary, if we never fail, we can't be sure we aren't going far enough. Have we gone too far if we try to re-envision our work, our organizations, our goals, our dreams? No. All change, all innovation, beings with re-imagining. Is it going too far to take important risks? No. We have to be willing to risk for the sake of movement and growth. Is it going too far to stand up and speak out about what you believe, even if your ideas are unpopular? No. The human story would be a slow and sad one if there had not been individuals all along the way who spoke out against the status quo and called their peers to be better than they were. Is it going too far to remain a committed idealist in a world that invites pessimism? Never. Without ideals we die.
Can we ever really go too far? This is a difficult question for me because I have already admitted that I am a life-long edge tester and there's a part of me that always wants to say that you can never go too far. Even my current decent into deep middle age hasn't deterred me from, often, heading out on metaphorical tight wires without benefit of nets. But I have also sometimes fallen hard onto the floor below. So with exhilerating experiences and occasional bruises to show for it, here is what I would say about going too far.
First, take big risks and important actions, but give them careful thought. Also make sure a part of the thinking process includes sharing your ideas with someone whose opinion on these matters you respect, because we human beings are expertly capable of having blind spots in our thinking and of deceiving ourselves.
Second, try not to go so far that, when you arrive at your destination, you find yourself utterly alone. It is hard to be a limit-tester, a risk-taker, a traveller into new terrain. Seek and maintain the support of someone who loves you.
Third, be aware that change involves loss as well as opportunity. You can't leave one job for another without surrendering the comforts and sometimes the friendships of where you were. You can't take on new responsibilities without letting go of old ones. Not for long anyway, or you will be of no use to anyone, including yourself. You can't launch new programs without sacrificing some aspects of what's already being done. You have to make enough room in your life and work for growth to occur.
Fourth, be ready to feel afraid. All change is scary. It is human to love a rut; ruts are comfortable and safe. There are many ways in which most of us would prefer the predictable to the uncertain or unknown. This is why, for example, when change occurs in organizations, it is often met with resentment or anger. This is why: "That isn't how it's done" and "but we've always done it this way" are such well-known phrases. Change requires that we rethink old ideas, and there is nothing scarier than giving up what we were convinced were truths about our work, ourselves, our world. But, you know, fear is also enlivening, which is why people skydive and bungee jump and scale sheer mountain cliffs. And it is good to feel fully alive.
Fifth, dare to dream. Let your mind wander. Rita Dove has a poem called "Daystar" in which she describes a woman who takes a chair out behind her garage to stare at an empty field while her children are napping. When her daughter finds her and demands to know what her mother has been doing out there, the mother responds, "Why, building a palace." We should build palaces in our minds.
Can we go too far? Maybe, but there are things to learn from it that we can't learn any other way, and even when I've sometimes thought I'd done it - gone too far - I've never regretted it for long.
I have no idea what Rita Dove had in mind when she wrote the words we began with: "When the sky's the limit, how can you tell you've gone too far?" But I do know where my attempt to address her question has taken me. By way of conclusion, and in humble tribute to her poetry, let me end this way:
The sky is infinite. It is we who make it a wall. The only way to know is: go.
Standing still is death. And far is never where you are, but where you dream to be. Everything good in life was born in dreams.
Be a dreamer.
… Yet both of you are happy, having fun & it is contending… Interpret in your own way.. Works for me …