Good OvercomesSample

We can’t give in to our limitations, but we can’t ignore them either. Instead, we have to redefine them, which requires active effort on our part. We must invest ourselves into pushing beyond whatever perceived restrictions our bodies, brains, or backgrounds can put on our lives. We can’t wish away our circumstances or passively hope they will change on their own. It is up to each one of us to reshape, reimagine, and redefine the limitations in our lives—every single day, with every decision we make. When we redefine our limits, we redefine what is possible.

This doesn’t mean that once you redefine them, those limitations will never try to creep back in. I’d have to fight back against the fears, the anger, the depression many more times after my path changed. I’d have to learn that it is okay to experience joy following heartbreak, just as it is okay to feel the depths of pain again, no matter how much time has passed. I’d have to remind myself that healing isn’t chronological; it doesn’t happen on a neat, convenient timeline. It isn’t a perfect process that resolves itself once and goes away forever. Loss, adversity, hardship, grief—those can be every bit as real and every bit as traumatic to the body and mind as physical injuries. Our bodies and our brains can hold on to pain that makes it difficult to move forward; yet, if we don’t move forward, we run the risk of leading a hemmed-in life that reflects all the opportunities we didn’t take and the joy we never even tried to chase.