I was talking to a friend Lance the other day, and somehow, we got to the subject of children and cribs and when they don't need their cribs anymore.

I told him, that while Matthew hadn't reached that stage, I know how it's supposed to go down: someday in the next year, Matthew will just wake up one day and crawl out of his crib, and crash onto the floor -- simultaneously breaking the crib barrier and learning about the effects of gravity. Or so I'm told anyhow. Actually, the person that told me this, Suzanne, also told me that is a ritual of sorts for children -- I guess every child needs to go through this process.

Lance was surprised to hear this scenario, and I admit that on the surface it all seems strange. I have to let my child physically hurt himself to mark a new crib-less future. However, after thinking about it some more, it all makes perfect sense -- and not just for children and their crib-to-bed transition, but for adults and their lives.

The crib is a physical barrier, and it's there to ensure the safety of a child while he cannot make decisions of safety on his own, or cannot undertake the communication required to learn safety in this situation. However, most children fall out of their cribs way after they are physically able to crawl out physically. Take Matthew, for example: he's 20 months, a big strong tall-for-his-age child that could easily crawl out of his crib if he wanted, but he hasn't yet -- hasn't even tried. So, at this point, it's not the physical barrier stopping him from progressing to the next stage - he just has yet to realize the barrier to his progression is in his mind. Either he isn't ready to accept undertaking a new stage, or he just simply doesn't realize he's fully able to do it.

I think that same scenario holds true for many stages of life as we get older and older. When we acquiesce to defeat "I can't do it" what is stopping us? Most of the time we blame the physical limitations on ourselves and our situations. But are they really there? Or is it the case of the child's fall from grace, that we simply don't realize we have the power to overcome the limitations of the physical barriers, that it's just a barrier of the mind.