The Strategy That Became the Prison

There is a coat you have been wearing for twenty or thirty years. You do not always notice it anymore because it has become indistinguishable from your body. It is how you move in a room, how you hold your face when someone challenges you, how you become unreachable when the conversation gets close to the thing you have never let anyone see.

The coat kept you warm once. I am not asking you to forget that. I am asking you to notice that your sleeves are short and your buttons will not close and you have been cold inside the coat for a long time because a coat that does not fit does not keep you warm. It keeps you covered. There is a difference.

You do not have to throw it out. Start with one button. Unbutton one thing that has been fastened for years and notice what the air feels like. Just one.

The coat is yours. The choice is yours. The room you are in now is not the room it was built for.

— Job