Why do we think we know what's going to happen to us? We dictate the form of our life, and then we move about those predetermined perimeters, never stepping beyond our small cages. We limit ourselves, we dream small, we get scared by life and become burdened with our problems... and we retreat.
I don't know about you, but I often catch my mind discussing my faults. And it's not a good, humble kind of conversation. It's a critique, a bashing, a "no, why do you think you can do this?" And I listen to it. I slink back from those big dreams and become "realistic". It means that I don't write, I don't create, I get lost in inaction.
But the truth is that our sense of reality is warped. We think small, because we relate to an idea of reality that is boxed in with straight lines and firm edges. We're like those goldfish who remain small because of their tiny bowls.
But we're being fooled. We think we're in the tiny fishbowl of our life and so we limit ourselves, but in reality we're out in the ocean. It's vast and endless, and we can just swim and swim and have enormous experiences.
Buddha taught emptiness, ultimate reality. Because when you apply logic, there is no sense to our sense of the world. We just believe what we see, the optical illusions, the reflections in the warped mirrors of our fun-house mind. The appearances.
But in truth, it's vast.