Most of us go through life obeying some set of unwritten rules. Whether they are legal, cultural, personal or developed through training and experience we all have them. Unknowingly they dictate our actions.
Being young and impressionable still (relatively at least) means that I run up against them a lot. I have lots of my own because I’m constantly running into new experiences and situations and find myself behaving a certain way which in hindsight doesn’t always work out. Or I’m running into rules that others have set for themselves that I don’t have because I’ve never had reason to develop that one myself. Commonly the ones I see for others have to do with technology or research.
What this really means though is that there are many situations in which we limit ourselves unknowingly. Our boundaries are closer in than we realize and the solutions we come up with do not reflect the entirety of the situation because we simply have blocked out the rest. Sometimes this is for the best but other times it leads to misunderstandings, issues or short sightedness.
Pay attention as you run through your daily routines and see if you can spot your unwritten rules. They may be impacting more than you realize.