Limits

The edges of what we can accomplish have always fascinated me. Records stand at those edges, tantalizingly out of reach to those striving to be the best at a thing. They keep us from harm and they keep us from success. They are  the most we can do.

When we approach those limits, our body and mind let us know, and we can choose to push. We ignore the warnings of fatigue, mental fog and emotional fragility so we can do more. That's what it's about to me, doing more.

But those limits are that hard edge. It's only through perseverance and dedication that we can actually push through those edges into new territory.  We feel the pain and embrace it in the name of improvement.

Whether it be learning a new language or getting up at a new time, those edges will be highly personal. Each one of us has our own limits imposed on us by our minds and bodies, but there are other limits.

We have our moral and ethical edges, those things we hold to as true. The core of our beliefs  are hard limits. We defend them once established and challenging them is hard. After all, belief is one of the strongest things a human does. It establishes our reality. It also establishes our society.

The limits of a society are different. We go from the personal to the aggregate really fast. Homogeny of belief is at the core of people. When we are talking about societal change, stretching beyond the edges becomes a matter for decades.

When I stretch my personal limits, I get sore legs for a few days. When a society tries to stretch itself beyond its limits, the pain comes out in some terrible ways. People get hurt in the pushing and in the backlash.

But push we must. Whether it be personal, interpersonal, emotional, physical or societal, we must drive ourselves to do better: to *be* better. It is only through the finding and moving of our limits that we can improve.

And we have to be better. Always.