Have you noticed how children possess a certain gem that makes them brilliant, daring, and loving? How are these magnificent beings eventually turning into ordinary, dull, selfish adults far from the aspirations of the past? You, why do you become like this today?
Imagine a palace with many rooms. Think that this palace is you, and every room in this palace symbolizes a unique talent, thought or emotion that resides within you. Can you picture this palace with hundreds of rooms, or better said, hundreds of possibilities?
But some of these rooms are sealed off as you grow up. Perhaps you questioned your father running a red light, and he responded, “If they were capable of doing it, they wouldn’t hesitate.” You learned; If you can’t, you must respect; if you can, crush it. The lights went out; the room’s door was locked; forever.
You saw someone smiling at you. Just as you were to smile back, your mother whispered, “Be careful. She is a foreigner”. Another room is gone. You wanted to say something, muttered nervously. Someone cut you off. Another room faded out about expressing yourself.
Now, after so many experiences, rebelling against your own destiny in a vicious cycle, you are trapped in a few rooms in this huge castle. Everything you couldn’t do, didn’t try, and gave up are locked in those rooms.
This is our story. I hear those saying they could sing well, threw the ball nicely, had good sketches, wanted to be a doctor, or liked acting when younger. Now they are living their lives distant from these dreams. There are people around us who had dreams once but lost them all now. Some resist new ideas and methods. Their egos take the ini6a6ve and search for flaws in others who try. They are imprisoned in a few rooms in their huge castle inside their heads, concentrating on threats rather than opportunities.
Have you ever observed your child repeating a tv character’s exact words? Shoshin calls this the “mind of a beginner,” which means that a child’s mind is as fresh as a blank canvas, ready to absorb every experience and piece of knowledge. As every touch leaves a mark, your past trials, humiliations, and setbacks accumulate on the page until no empty space is left on your “canvas.”
Some of these rooms won’t open again but join me and open a fresh page to try. I ask for two promises from you:
The first is that you will try. Say, “I will try, for once, to do what I have wanted to do for a long time without worrying about failure or what other people say. I will try.”
Second, I want you to say, “I promise not to pass on my personal fears and biases to my child. I will not limit them. I will help them try and endure so that their rooms are not closed, that clean canvas is free from my nonsense.”
Come on; if you are not a part of the solution, you are a part of the problem. I want two promises that you’ll try, at least.