Self-Imposed Limits

I used to ask people, “What is the most money you think you could ever earn in one year?”

One woman said to me, “I wouldn’t even tell my mother that.”

“I won’t tell your mother either.” I said.

“Oh.  Okay.  $35,000,” she revealed. Of course, that was years ago.

I wasn’t just asking just to be conversational.  I was testing my theory that we can never exceed an internal limit that we have set for ourselves, even (or especially) an unconscious limit.  I personally have set my internal money-earning limit very high, and promised myself to raise it if I ever got close.  That hasn’t happened yet.

Years ago I met someone in a poetry workshop at USC who has become one of my closest friends.  She has always been a terrific poet, and I was delighted to publish a number of her poems in Rattle, the poetry journal I founded.  This year, one of her poems was included in a collection of best American poetry.  What the heck. She could be a U.S. poet laureate one day.

As a child, I took it as a given that the world was run by adults.  I never thought that one day I would be one of them, even when, at age 8, I announced that I would be President of the United States.  (Today I wouldn’t take that job if it was handed to me.)

But my generation grew up and, for better or for worse, has produced both presidents and poets.

As long as each of us is alive, our possibilities remain boundless.

I invite you to free yourself from any self-imposed limits.

Alan