Freedom lies beyond fear and doubt
A timeless lesson from the great Harry Houdini: The Master of Illusions
Harry Houdini wore many hats during his thrilling lifetime of vaudeville.
A skillful performer of magic and illusions
A fighter against fraud
An actor
He was constantly exploring and innovating how he lived his life on the grounds of refusing to do anything that everyone else was already doing.
But the most famous exploit of his, which made his name omnipresent in areas where miracles and mystical experiences are concerned, was the act of extricating himself from locked jails, trunks, shackles, and handcuffs.
Wherever he traveled, he would confidently declare that no locks could restrain him beyond a specified time period. Local police who accepted the challenge and locked him up would then watch on in awe as the indomitable Harry Houdini would calmly walk out of his cell in a matter of minutes, with a mysterious expression of indifference on his face.
He did this everywhere he went, in some cases, even performed his escape stunts in his birthday suit (aka stripped naked).
But as with traditional superheroes, even Houdini had his credentials severely tested, in incredibly ironic circumstances, when he once almost failed in his daredevil attempts to escape a jail door, which, wait for it, was never locked in the first place!
“What? The great Harry Houdini couldn’t escape an unlocked jail cell? You’re putting me on!“
No, I’m not, read on friend!
A modest town in the United Kingdom once invited Houdini to try escaping one of their jail cells and our hero accepted the invitation without batting an eyelid. This jail cell was in fact as normal as it came.
In went Houdini in his regular clothes as the metal doors behind him closed shut. Our hero of course came in prepared as usual - his eyes glinted as he searched his belt and retrieved from within a curious metal tool which he specially designed to pick locks, and it has never failed him before…..
He began picking at his cell’s lock to his utter dismay, it didn’t work.
30 minutes passed on….the door remained closed.
60 minutes later…..still no luck.
Houdini, bathed in a cold sweat of fury and exasperation, was still grappling furiously with the lock which remained as stubborn as his demeanor.
The unstoppable force has finally met an immovable object.
His confidence, which had previously been bullet proof, slowly started to crumble as thoughts of fear and doubt crept in.
After about two painstaking hours, Houdini had accepted his fate, he had failed.
Dropping the metal tool on the ground, he collapsed in defeat against the door, which innocently swung open!!!
As it turns out the door had never been locked all this time.
Houdini was stupefied, he could scarcely believe his eyes; how did he, the greatest escapist of all time, not consider this simple possibility of the door being unlocked?
Then it hit him.
In his mind, he had decided that the door was locked, therefore only using his past experiences and knowledge, and that effectively faded out all other possibilities, including simply attempting to open the door and victoriously walk out of the jail cell.
Final words
Anything new that we venture into is always going to make us feel uncomfortable and fill our minds with doubts. It is until we take some sort of action to address those fears and commit ourselves to start moving, that we begin to understand why something makes us feel afraid and how we can overcome whatever fear and doubt that was incapacitating us.
Cos truth to be told, your fears and doubts may just be false and the door may have been unlocked all this time.
Now, here’s a question for you.