Prison

Yesterday I started reading Tom Clancy’s “Executive Orders” and there is this one line that I can’t stop thinking about. “The real prison was, and would always be, himself” (21).

I guess what intrigues me about this line is how accurate it is. We live out our lives surrounded by shifting prisons. When we are young school acts as our prison, later it is the jobs that we hold, and always there are limitations that accompany our age and health. But this line touches on the most important of all the prisons that we find ourselves entrapped in.

We ourselves act as our own prisons. The bars that bind us are no less capable of holding us captive though they are invisible. Our thoughts and our doubts imprison us. They are what hold us accountable and in some instances hold us back.