Setting Down the Lockpicks

Metaphorical Narrative

Imagine you once carried a set of lockpicks everywhere. In a city of scarcity, you needed them to sneak into storerooms, outwit guards, and claim what was essential for survival. Each trick and maneuver was life itself.

But years later, you’re still walking around with that heavy kit strapped to your chest, scanning every room for angles, plots, and shortages that no longer exist. The locks are gone. The doors are open. The city has abundance now. Yet the habit of scheming still runs, like a ghost program in the background.

It’s time to set down the lockpicks. Not out of defeat, but out of recognition: they are obsolete. You don’t need to manipulate a system that no longer imprisons you.

Core Insight

When resources were limited, manipulation was a survival tactic—an unconscious contract that said, “My worth and safety depend on playing angles.” That contract kept you alive. But the context has changed. Now it only drains focus and muddies relationships, because every moment is scanned for scarcity that isn’t there.

Executive function can issue a new contract: Choice is full. Freedom is create. Instead of tricks, the engine is clarity. Instead of schemes, the anchor is direct choice.

The brain doesn’t need to “game” anything when ownership is already yours.

Saturday Experiment

1. Spot the Ghost Move – Notice one moment today where you feel the impulse to angle, over-calculate, or second-guess how to get your share. Label it: old lockpick strategy.
2. Bin It – Say out loud: obsolete beyond years. Me choice full. Let it drop.
3. Direct Replace – Immediately make a straightforward decision—no angles, no schemes. Choose and act cleanly.

Sunday Reflection

Write in third person:

• What situations triggered the old manipulation instinct?
• How did they react when they chose directly instead of strategizing?
• In what ways did they feel freer without carrying the lockpick kit?
• What new creative energy opened once the survival contract was voided?