Working with Limitations

[Plenum]

Seth Godin works in the field of marketing, but in truth, he works on the nature of the self, and how to understand it better. A lot of what he writes about falls into the domain of applied psychology - or the practical applications of choosing to engage in a certain pattern of thought/behaviour.

His books in general are quite thought-provoking (and even if your disagree, you end up formulating your own counter-opinion to what he presents), and he's also given some great talks which are available online (most notably TED Talks).

He had a blog post today which I thought was elegantly expressed. Here it is in full:

Embracing boundaries

One of the most popular home computers ever made was the Commodore 64. The "64" was the amount of memory it had--not 64 gigs, or 64 megs, but 64k. If it were available today, it would be a little like being a toothpick vendor at a lumberjack convention.

The thing is, the amount of available memory was right there, in the name of the machine. All the people who developed for the machine knew exactly how much memory it had. Any time a developer whined or made excuses about how little memory there was, he was telling us something we already knew, making excuses where no excuses were needed or welcome.

With unlimited time, unlimited money and unlimited resources, of course you might do something differently. But your project is defined by the limitations and boundaries that are in place when you set out to accomplish something.

You build something remarkable because of the boundaries, not without them.

I find this to be a beautifully expressed final line. That limitations (whether it be of computational power, or physical space, or available financial resources) force us to come up with elegant and clever solutions. It forces us not to be lazy, but to think about how to maximise the use of what we have available to us.

And such is the limitation of this 3d physical body, and this 3d mind, covered over with this cloudy Veil.

within the given constraints, what magic do we choose to devise?

[Alex Zachary]

What works best for me is the magic of laughter. Even at the cost of your feelings.

[AnthroHeart]

What works best for me are thoughts of death. Not actually dying, but thoughts of it. That's a limitation, but it also makes me feel better.

[Adonai One]

Embracing the boundaries towards self-acceptance or the rejection of the self is the real choice.

Will you become the boundaries as they exist or will you and the boundaries become something that was previously unexplored and anew?

[Phoenix]

Limitation perhaps forces us to not do some things that would not be so good for us.

I have not had a job for a while. But have been meditating and being helpful at home to my mother who has a very intensive job. So the limitation is like a building block in my experience.

[AnthroHeart]

I've had a job for 13 years, though I haven't really been overjoyed about it. It's been ok. But I enjoy my weekends.