You are older today and your body has changed. Or you are getting older and your body is changing. Be aware of and acknowledge the limits that time has imposed on you. Then accept them as your current reality. What is, is!
Accepting those limits as current reality doesn’t mean that they can’t be be increased, changed or even eliminated. It only means that they exist now. And often we are stopped before we start by what we only perceive as limitations.
If you have been reading these articles, it may well be because you recognize these current or upcoming “limitations” and you are looking for ideas and thoughts about how to recognize, accept, acknowledge and then overcome them. You want to do something about the potentially debilitating physical and mental effects of aging before they get too serious. You would like to stay healthy and become more fit. You want to remain mentally and physically active.
Personal Development gurus say there are no limits. That’s simply not true. Of course there are limits. We each have our physical limitations. My wife had knee replacement surgery a few years back. Even with Physical Therapy, her knee joint will only rotate a certain number of degrees past 90 degrees. Her range of motion is limited by the physical constraints of the artificial knee. She is not physically capable of doing squats or deep knee bends as deeply as you or me.
And Bruce Lee, the well known martial artist, movie actor and sometime philosopher was fond of telling people that one of his legs was an inch shorter than the other, a limitation for a martial artist which he turned into an advantage for certain kinds of “kicks” — because of it, rather than being limited by it. He was also nearsighted and had trouble seeing his opponents until he finally got contact lenses.
When we recognize them, acknowledge them, and accept them as current reality, then we know that we can work within the existing limits on our body, to improve them and create a “new and improved” reality.
“Our limits are not limits, only plateaus” — Me. I just made that up. Not bad, huh?
How about perceived limitations that aren’t really there? How about self-limitation? Bruce Lee suggested that most limitation is self-limitation. He said: “There are no limits, only those limits we impose upon ourselves.” I would add, “… or those we create ourselves in our minds.”
What may be a limitation now can, with effort and practice, be eliminated. Our bodies may be only capable of so much today, but may be able to exceed that limit after only a few weeks, or months. As long as we work within our limitations, we can improve them safely and effectively until they diminish or disappear. And that’s something we should strive for.
Thank you for reading.