Support for "Flying Outside the Box"--Lifting beyond the limits of gravity

In the 1960 movie, High Time, Bing Crosby (playing Harvey Howard, 51-year-old widower and stakehouse tycoon) goes to college.  The movie tracks his college career from arrival on campus for his freshman year through graduation.  Along the way he falls in love with Nicole Maurey (playing the French lecturer, Madame Gautier).  He affirms that he is locked into his past--family, career, etc. and could no more fall in love again "than he could fly."  (Of course he does fall in love again and she does with him.)  As the commencement speaker at his graduation, Bing demonstrates that he has changed his mind and has gone beyond his  pre-existing limits of thought and behavior--and declares his love. 

As much as I am an advocate for "out-of-the-box" thinking, I believe that there are times when I need to learn to "fly"--in much the way Bing does in this movie.  I was a paratrooper in the Army and loved the feeling of floating to earth under a parachute.  While that's not quite the same as flying, it does compel moving to a new perspective of thought.  "Tree-top level" is the moment when a paratrooper needs to relax and to get ready to land.  (My experiences were all "combat jumps" at about 1,200 feet above the ground rather than long free-fall jumps.)

Finding new ways to do things, using technology to help us to fly, all of these are important habits to cultivate, along with reflection and recognizing when we are "bumping our head against a glass ceiling."  It is important to develop strategies to move beyond these pre-existing limits. 

I enjoy watching High Time in the Fall to be reminded to lift off beyond the limits of gravity as I move into new projects and work.