our invisible prisons

…. We do have a deadening desire to reduce the mystery, the uncertainty of our lives…. 

We bind our lives in solid chains of forced connections that block and fixate us. …. 

Our sense of uncertainty and our need for security nail our world down. …. 

 

Each time we go out, the world is open and free;

 it offers itself so graciously to our hearts, to create something new and wholesome

 from it each day. It is a travesty of possibility and freedom to think

 we have no choice, that things are the way they are and that the one street,

 the one right way is all that is allotted to us. 

Certainty is a subtle destroyer.

We confine our mystery within the prison of routine and repetition. 

One of the most deadening forces of all is repetition. 

Your response to the invitation and edge of your life becomes reduced 

to a series of automatic reflexes. For example, you are so used to getting up

 in the morning and observing the morning rituals of washing and dressing.

 You are still somewhat sleepy, your mind is thinking of things you have to do

 in the day that lies ahead. You go through these first gestures of the morning

 often without even noticing that you are doing them. This is a disturbing

 little image, because it suggests that you live so much of your one life

with the same automatic blindness of adaptation.

… Habit is a strong invisible prison.

 Habits are styles of feeling, perception, 

or action that have now become second nature to us.

 A habit is a sure cell of predictability; it can close you off from the unknown,

 the new, and the unexpected. You were sent to the earth to become a receiver

 of the unknown. From ancient times, these gifts were prepared for you; 

now they come towards you across eternal distances. 

Their destination is the altar of your heart. 

~ John O’Donohue

from Eternal Echoes

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