Rules

By Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter

Rules are both comforting and annoying.

We agree to abide by them to get many of the benefits of society at large.

Sometimes, rules feel punitive.

Sometimes rules feel crushing.

Most of the time, we are not to the fact that we’re living with rules because we’ve internalized them so profoundly that we become numb to them.

Blind habits turn into rules we live by.

We stop thinking about them and how they affect us.

We become another spoke in the hub, gear in the machine, however you want to describe it!

We stop dreaming.

We stop dreaming for ourselves and place our dreams upon others, often damaging them with their expectations and hopes.

I tried very hard not to place my hopes on my son, allowing him to have his own.

It has been hard watching him struggle, but he has returned for advice they never sought before.

As we become older, it becomes harder to be conscious to all the things we have agreed to without thinking and make the changes so that her life is one that we enjoy.

A lifetime is not a long time.