We sometimes build our own cages through assumptions or the opinions and assumptions of others. Then we lock ourselves in them and rail at fate for making us a victim. It’s a survival trait to put our energy into what we know will work. No use wasting energy on possibilities when we know we can get things done the way we’ve always done it. Agrarian cultures are built on this premise and it’s how human beings survived and thrived for centuries. Innovation was a threat because one false move and entire crop could be lost, which wasn’t just numbers on a balance sheet but famine and starvation for a family or a whole community. Wisdom is in what has proven itself effective. Assumptions that it will work in the future are safe.
So we make assumptions, even today. Perhaps more today because we are so inundated with information. We can’t take it all in, we can’t sort through it all, so we deal with what we know and we make up what we know and we assume that what others say about things is the truth and from this we build our life or our cage. But it’s a cage made of paper. It can’t actually hold us. All we have to do is poke a couple of holes through it. How? By seeking out the truth.
Look at what you know about any given situation and start sorting what you know to be true and what you’ve assumed is true. Anything that is assumed can be checked out and confirmed or disproved. Basing your cage on someone else’s information? Ask around. Confirm the story or find out it’s an interesting faery tale. Been told that you are this or that or the other because you do this or that, act this way or that? Well, is that the truth or one person’s opinion? Is it an opinion shared by others or unique to that person? Does their opinion define you? You might be able to tear down the paper walls people have pasted up around you with one conversation or a couple of internet searches.
Building your choices for your life based on assumptions about what is and isn’t possible? What is and isn’t available to you? What you can or can’t do? Stop and check the facts. Better to know the truth than waste precious time and energy in a paper cage. Besides, we all know what happens when you ass-u-me.