Personal Limitations: Craters of Experience

This week brings us to the final part of personal limitations: experiences.

Including anything that you’ve ever done—or has been done to you—experiences range from the life-changing to the insignificant, the positive to the negative. Childhood abuse. Bullies. Encouraging mentors. Conversion to Christianity. A grandparent’s death. Sleepovers. Sibling rivalry. Easy classes in school. Movies seen and books read.

All these have impact, leaving behind craters big and small, and the type of crater left behind determines the personal limitations needed. The deeper the crater, the more likely special guardrails will be needed.

An obvious example might be someone scarred by war or abuse: Stories dealing with these topics would probably be off-limits most of the time.

But the seemingly insignificant can also leave deep impacts, despite their small appearance on the surface. For instance, I love the television show Murder, She Wrote. However, because of pieces of the show I saw at an early age, it can still evoke sleeplessness at night for me. So my guardrail is that I cannot watch the show after seven p.m.

So when evaluating personal experiences, consider both the big and small.