A few months back, Robert Latimer was released from prison, and is now on parole. If you remember, he was convicted of killing his severely handicapped daughter who had cerebral palsy. He's been in jail since 2001. At the time of his release, he said that even with his release, he is just trading one prison for a bigger prison. He sounds a bit bitter and sour over the whole thing. Even though the bars of the prison are gone... he is taking them with him. Certainly, he has limitations on his parole... but he is the one who turns that into a prison.
And we do the same thing. We might not be in jail, but we create prisons for ourselves. The bars are made of a variety of things... our expectations about how we should behave, based on how we think other people expect us to behave... our judgements about ourselves and others... Because bars keep others out as much as they prevent us from breaking out... bars that are made of our fears about what others might think of us... bars that are made of our anger towards ourselves and others for how life has turned out for us, or for them... bars that are made of regrets for the way things turned out in the past.... We have the power to keep those bars in place... to keep those bars in existence... or we can dissolve them... for they are as nebulous as our thoughts... and they are as firm as our thoughts. They more we think about the them... the more solid they become... But we can let them go... we can let them fade away... and when they begin to rematerialize... we can let them go again...
We have the power and control over how we see life... as a prison... or as a place of freedom... Someone who is in jail could be free in their thoughts and their spirit. Someone who is not in prison, could be behind the bars of their thoughts... Our choice....
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