Soaring Beyond Limitations

Learning to Fly

In the 1930’s and 1940’s, there were numerous women’s magazines. Besides offering a fictional short story and maybe some celebrity gossip, these magazine showed women in the role of the day–keeping their home. They suggested the number of times per week the home should be dusted, scrubbed, organized, and otherwise kept spotless. They suggested ways to look good when the “man of the house” arrived home from a tough day at the office. In short, those magazines and their publishers set up an impossible regimen of expectations for their readers.

Many of us know women who have spent much of their lives trying to live up to the model housewife role prescribed by those magazines. The trouble is, many of them have (or had) dreams of their own, like wanting to write, or to travel, or to participate in the freedoms only men then enjoyed.

Today, any of us can achieve our dreams. All too often, however, women continue to be denied their destiny by the expectations set by others. Bombarded by advertising and social media messages that insist women follow their example, their guidelines, or their models. Many allow their dreams to wither and die – waiting in line for their turn to blossom – never receiving the water of encouragement needed to grow and bloom.

What about your dreams? Need some encouragement to help you think outside the kitchen?  (And this advice goes to anyone–not just women!) Begin by spending time with others who have already achieved their dreams. Leave your naysayer acquaintances behind, and stop following social media influencers that do not motivate you. Read inspiring biographies. If you haven’t yet learned to “fly,” pick up Jonathan Livingston Seagull or Illusions by Richard Bach.

As Jonathan says in the book, “Don’t believe what your eyes are telling you. All they show is limitation. Look with your understanding, find out what you already know, and you’ll see the way to fly.”