Caged By Choice: The Imaginary bars Between You and Your Real Life
Escape the Zoo
Comfort is a cage with nice views and imaginary bars.
There’s a certain ease to captivity.
Food shows up on time.
The path is predictable.
You don’t have to worry about survival…just staying inside the lines.
Welcome to the zoo.
A life curated for safety.
No real risk. No real freedom.
You built it.
And now you’re pacing inside it.
The Illusion of Safety
The zoo isn’t a literal place.
It’s the mental space where dreams go to wait.
Where routines replace purpose.
Where self-imposed limits disguise themselves as wisdom.
It’s:
• The job you hate but keep because it’s “stable.”
• The version of yourself that doesn’t speak up, doesn’t stretch, doesn’t leap.
• The habits that numb you just enough to get by.
And the worst part?
It feels comfortable.
Predictable. Safe. Familiar.
But it’s not freedom. It’s just a cage with air conditioning.
The Cage You Built
The zoo isn’t made of steel...it’s made of stories.
Stories you tell yourself to avoid risk.
To avoid judgment.
To avoid becoming who you actually are.
Here are a few of the most common:
• The Cage of Fear: What if I fail? What if I’m not good enough?
• The Cage of Perfectionism: I’ll act when it’s ready. When I’m ready.
• The Cage of Expectation: This isn’t what I want, but it’s what I’m supposed to do.
• The Cage of Comfort: It’s not ideal, but it’s not that bad.
These cages are reinforced daily...not by the world, but by the choices YOU make.
The key is in YOUR hand.
You just have to stop pretending it’s not.
The Wild Is Waiting
Outside the zoo is the wild.
It’s messy. Loud. Unpredictable.
But it’s where YOU BECOME.
In the wild:
• You don’t follow paths → you forge them.
• You don’t just survive → you adapt and evolve.
The wild is where you remember what it feels like to be fully alive.
Why Most People Stay in the Zoo
Because the wild is scary.
There’s no map.
No guarantee.
No guardrails.
But here’s the truth most people don’t want to hear:
The zoo is also scary.
Because the longer you stay there, the more you forget you’re even in a cage.
And when you forget you’re caged, you stop trying to leave.
Don’t Wait for Permission
You weren’t born to pace.
You were born to roam. To run. To risk.
No one is going to open the cage for you.
That’s your job.
You have to choose freedom.
Over comfort. Over convenience.
Over the illusion of “maybe later.”
The wild is waiting.
The gate is open.
Run.
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This is an excerpted version of a chapter from my passion project/book:
The Cage You Built