The Cage of Standards

Metaphorical Narrative

A cage is built not of iron, but of rules: “Never fail. Always look strong. Never show weakness.”

Each bar was welded by someone else’s standard. You learned to pace inside, fearing shame if you touched the walls.

But cages of standards dissolve the moment you stop respecting them.

Core Insight

The ego enforces standards as if they were survival rules. But they were never yours — they were borrowed. Freedom isn’t earned by perfect performance. It’s taken back by declaring the standards irrelevant.

Saturday Experiment

1. List one standard that keeps them trapped.
2. Write: “This is not mine.”
3. Act once today in defiance of it.

Sunday Reflection

• What standard-cages did they notice?
• How did it feel to disobey them?
• Did shame weaken when the bar was erased?