Why We Wait to Cross a Threshold

The five-year-old girl wanted to climb the steps of the slide. She took off up the ladder, finding herself increasingly slowing as the height increased. Getting to the top, she froze, looking down to where she started. “No.” She heard No. She didn’t feel ready to sit and slide down. She stood with No a while, then backed down the stairs, quivering until her feet landed where she started. Familiar soil.

We do it as adults so often. We stop. We stare at the threshold. We are afraid to cross it. We stand with No. We all feel it. Uncertainty and lack of control. Starting a relationship, ending a relationship, Changing geographies, professions, and faiths.

We dwell in the discomfort of the present to feed the ego’s need to grip the reins of past experiences.

A sense of control and knowingness. An illusion, just the same.

What we think we know limits us from knowing new ‘realties’. It’s all changing with or without us, the known and the unknown. Seen or unseen, Experienced or imagined.

The threshold awaits. Keep looking at it. One tentatively placed foot upon that bridge... the precarious first step. A rebellion against No. It summons courage to proceed. Let your present self meet your future self on the bridge. Cross a threshold.