I'm not sure where the disdain for limits comes from. It's a very American thing to heap scorn and derision and burdening shame on the idea that a person or the object of a person's ambition could possibly be a thing with limits. Maybe it's the curse of living in (at least in relative terms to most of the rest of the world) what constitutes a meritocracy, where it is theoretically actually possible to push yourself out of the station to which you were born. Here, the trailer-park-iest of trailer park denizens could, with grit and native ability and a bit of luck, find her way to an Ivy League education and access to all the halls of power and influence and wealth, theoretically. Of course it's slightly easier to do if you have slightly more resources and a higher Q-rating than the average trailer-park dweller... OK, it's a lot easier. Yeah, bootstraps, hard work, etc., but if you really want to get ahead, your first best choice basically should have been to be born Jared Kushner.
I know I'm supposed to be pushing or testing my limits, but "pushing your limits" is for commercials that want you to drink sports drinks after landing in a sand pit of some kind or drive your Lexus SUV out of the Trader Joe's parking lot and up a conveniently nearby mountain.
A limit is a definitional border. It's the line beyond which a Thing and its unique, coherent Thing-ness are clearly and definingly Not A Thing. It's the root basics of logic and critical thinking, and I know this because it's one of the things German philosophers (and the teaching assistants presenting them) would drone on and on and on and endlessly on about when I was definitely NOT falling asleep in my upper-division seminar courses as an undergrad. Choosing to minor in philosophy was such a good idea, is a sentence I'm still sure I'll find a reason to say sincerely one day.
Honestly, I'm pretty comfortable with where my definitional borders are at. Not because I don't have ambition to be anything else, it's just that the basic realities of eating-and-shelter survival requires a certain amount of acceptance of at least partial socio-professional ossification if you a) want a family and b) aren't an asshole.* I'm sure there are people out there with kids putting their entire incomes and housing-surety on the line for the thrill of a 3-5% cost of living raise, but I'm not that daredevil. I'm so far away from thinking about pulling money from my 401k so I can buy a 7% stake in a Yogurtland franchise or whatever, I don't even know how much is in that bitch.
The cultural message, though, is that if you're not pushing, stretching, growing, then you're choosing stagnation, malaise, contraction to the point of suffocation. When is it OK to settle? Or further (worse?!) when is it OK to quit? If it's me talking to my kids: the minute things get hard. That's the best plan, really. Because if things get hard for them, it's going to be a) a lot more work for me to keep them motivated with pep talks and string cheese and b) a continued inconvenience and/or expense for me to get them to and pay for whatever it is they're supposed to be applying their sticky sticktoitiveness all over when they don't even want to be doing it in the first goddamned place. I mean really, who is this for at that point? The car doesn't need the exercise.
For just myself, well, I guess it depends on the stakes. If it's a thing at work, it depends on who it affects. Just me? Find a way to quit as soon as possible. If it makes work for other people? Fuck it, we're in it forever or until one of us dies. I WILL NOT BE OUT-MARTYRED.
If it's to do with my kids, find a way to do it where they can't tell I'm actually doing anything. The last fucking thing I need is my kids feeling guilty about me doing anything to support them. I work really hard to make sure the youngest doesn't know I get up an hour early every goddamned day so I can leave work early to watch him play JV volleyball at 3:15 in the afternoon. Sure, I told him three days in, but I worked REALLY HARD not to for those first two days. But come on, 3:15. On a weekday. What am I, a saint?
If it's purely personal, well... it depends on the stakes, doesn't it? I think I know how far I'd go for a booty call,** for a first date, to maintain a casual relationship. Those limits I know. They're outlined in white tape vaguely in the shape of (metaphorical!) human bodies on the floor. Very brightly demarcated.
But what if it was actually a chance for everything, for the last first date, for the legs you want across your lap when Game of Thrones comes back, for the same bedtime tank-top you never get tired of, for the assumable movie companion, for the emergency contact, for the spoken tone that lets only you know you're being an asshole at a party, for the deep breath of sleep on your neck, for the fading of the borders between, where the limits blur into a swirl of soft commingling and connection in a world of otherwise jagged things? What's too much effort, too much patience, too much time? What's far enough when the prize is a metaphysical whole?
Well, until the other person says "no thank you,"*** I suppose. It's nice to be committed, but it won't do to be impolite. There are limits and then there are boundaries, man.
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*In this instance "asshole" is defined as anyone who cannot afford full time live-in child care.
**Theoretically, one county, no more. Fortunately this is not really my style. Really keeps miles off the car odometer being both a starry-eyed romantic and a sour-faced prude.
***Also acceptable: Fuck off.
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