If I stand only here and never move
I never learn what other views exist.
What other vistas I have not seen
staring, as I have been,
in one direction.
Maybe I will choose this same dream.
Maybe I will return to this same spot
and be graced by things I never noticed
beneath my own feet.
But, I tell you this one thing
I cannot decide to return to this spot
if I do not know it is the one for me.
If I never seek another viewpoint,
If I am not educated by places and things I never knew, I didn’t know.
How can I truly ever appreciate that which I have taken for granted, if I do not learn about that which exists outside my gaze?
How can I honor who I am, if I do not yet know who else I can be?
I am limited by my entitlement and my privilege.
I am enclosed by my lack of knowing, that I lack the knowing.
Let me walk forward and be educated.
Let me stumble, fall, and rise by my own power.
Let me see, with my own eyes, that I am less than I think I am, and more than I realized I could be.
Let me become.
Pain is not pain if it makes you evolve.
Pain that makes you grow is a blessing in determined clothing.