John Tackles the Impossible Prompt
...not impossible
Every month, BreakBread shares a prompt to explore using the BreakBread process. This month is the “Impossible Prompt”
:
The impossible: a wall or a doorway?
Share a story where what you believed to be impossible turned out to be quite possible. What impossibility are you now facing?
We live in a world of impossible possibilities. The mobile phone we hold in our hand, hinted at in the Dick Tracy comics with his 2-way wrist radio, is now a reality extended way beyond those naive imaginings. One of thousands possible examples once never thought possible or even dreamed of are now encountered in our everyday lives.
It is our human tendency to link the possible, and therefore the impossible, with this tenaciously persistent thing we refer to as “reality”.
What is real and what is not, often has to do with what is objectively perceived, can be measured, and is reproducible; for example: money.
I am reading “Of Water And Spirit: Ritual, Magic and Initiation in the Life of an African Shaman” by Malidoma Patrice Somé in which he states that in his culture, anything that can be imagined is real and therefore despite our thinking in the West, quite possible. He claims what is not real are the walls and limits we place in the way of imagination.
So, imagination is real whereas the limits upon imagination are actually what is not real. So what’s illusion and what’s real? When we write off our imagination by telling ourselves it’s not real, or it can’t be done, are we terminating the journey before it begins? And is not what’s real and worth our while, the journey itself?
History is filled with the stories of those who have inspired us by achieving something extraordinary – often up until their achievement, is thought of as quite impossible.
What’s not told are the stories of those who never tried the impossible.
What is the impossible for you? A wall or a doorway? Is it a dead end not worthy of consideration or a horizon inviting us to imagine, dream, and who knows… maybe we’ll end up somewhere we could never have imagined.