Capacity - #1

THE TRAILHEAD

I've been wanting to publish a blog for a long time, but I didn't know it would take losing my job to motivate me to do it.

So, I plan to explore some simple topics for however many more weeks or months it takes for me to get a new job. Each word will reflect a thought in this new journey, and each thought is considered a stepping stone in my growth as a changing person and as a human being engaged in the process of reaching some unknown and distant destination.

Sometimes the path is linear and sometimes it meanders and seemingly feels off course. The objective is to make my own path and to be fine with it, and also to understand there is no one way of getting anywhere.


Destinations and goals are always subject to change, just as status quo is subject to disruption. But while change has a way of rocking our world, it is not only good, but should be expected. It's just that most often when it happens, we have become comfortable, and suddenly, a change has forced into a scrambling mode. 

True, I'm patting my pockets right now, looking for the cell phone or the compass and wondering exactly where I am? The truth is, I am where I am, and where I'm supposed to be at this very moment. What I'm learning is there is a difference in being lost and not exactly knowing where I am.


Anyway, I'm taking you on this journey with me. Come along. We'll learn together.

- Lisa D. Mickey
January 8, 2012


1. CAPACITY

Capacity is an interesting word because it means so much. It means we have the capacity to live a life in a place that makes us happy. It means we have the capacity to think thoughts and to explore the world. We have the capacity to be whatever we want to be in life -- to live, to learn, to love, to explore, to work, to rest, to recreate and to move comfortably toward the end of our mortal existence. It means we have the ability to be what we want to be.

Capacity is the absolute potential to do anything or to, at least, attempt anything, but it requires effort. You can have the capacity to do anything, but if you don't exert or extend yourself, or if you don't explore or dream, then you will never know what your capacity is. The thought without effort is a mere concept.

Your capacity can take you in places you never knew you could go, doing things you never knew you could do, or even  thinking thoughts that never before interested you. Capacity is the threshold for infinite possibility. That's what human capacity really is -- possibility with effort.

And when you're looking to move ahead or beyond any transition that feels uncomfortable, or if you're just looking to move to the next destination, wherever it is, whatever it is, you have to have a belief in your own capacity to accomplish those goals, to engage and to venture forth. I think human capacity is the enabling aspect of human existence. Without capacity, we're mere objects -- stationary, transfixed, immobile, dreamless and without goals. Fortunately, we all have capacity. And because of it, perhaps the objective is to explore what our lifelong capacity is and where it can take us, fearlessly moving forward.