While sitting in a maximum security prison, I learned a most important lessons of life. Not from the instructors of the course. This lesson was taught to me by a man seated in the chair next to me.
We were in a room filled with individuals looking to learn the skills they needed to change lives. My training partner was serving a life sentence for murder. He would never be able to see the world and utilize the skills we were learning to change his life on the outside. I was about to start off into a new phase of life and this training was a key part.
I was a Felony Probation/Parole Officer with the freedom to choose my life. He had an 8 year old daughter. I had the ability to walk out of that prison every night after training and call my wife and kids. He would never see his daughter grow up or be part of her life.
The irony, in many respects, he was happier and freer than I was. He had freed himself from the prison in his mind. I was still polishing some of the bars that held me captive never realizing that the keys were jingling in my pocket the whole time.
He was also one of the most positive and upbeat people I had ever met. A drug deal that went bad resulting in the loss of a life put him in the Oregon State Penitentiary for life. My choice of career paths had landed me in the same penitentiary for training. He requested to attend that training so that he could change himself, and help others change. A person whom many would consider a “waste to society” taught me as much that week as anything I was learning from the instructors.
I observed a man who realized what he had allowed his life to become and what he had lost. I also observed a man who had awoken to the reality that he was not a waste and could influence and change the lives of every other inmate he came across who would have the opportunity to get out and live their life. I had the privilege of leaving every night to sleep in the comfort of a small hotel room at least 4 times the size of his cell, yet he had already impacted the lives of more men than could be counted because he believed he could.
While this man was trapped in a physical prison, he was free in his own mind and heart to fully live. Many who are free to live are trapped in a prison of their own making and have no freedom due to the beliefs and principles they have locked onto.
The proverb “As he thinketh in his heart, so is he” is more commonly known by Earl Nightingales version, “we move toward and become like that which we think about most”. Both are powerful truths that cannot be worked around.
Our outcomes are a direct representation of our truest and loudest inner beliefs. Success, failure, and complacency are all a reflection of our deepest inner self. Like the auto pilot of a ship or airplane that guides the craft to the programmed destination, the inner self-talk and the beliefs we have locked onto ultimately become our reality.
To be fair, not all our beliefs and habits are negative and self-defeating. You would not be reading this if you did not hold belief that you could be or do better than you are today. The teachable, vulnerable part comes when we allow ourselves to get real close to the core. What has held me from achieving the total success that I have dreamed of? What am I holding onto that has restricted me from achieving more than I have? Or and other thoughts that triggered for you when you read this.