It's amazing to me how many people that say or think things like...

"I have been fat my whole life!"  

"I have always had this disease."

"I have been this way forever so why change now!"

Like it or not, these types of statements reflect a mental disease of sorts!  I'm not talking about the typical mental disorders, but a more subtle one.  It's one that has become such an integrated part of how you think and live that you don't even notice it anymore!  It's the type of thinking that keeps you caged up your entire life UNLESS you start changing what you say and think about yourself!  

The cure for this "mental illness" lies in the FREE WILL you have been given!  Free will; when EXERCISED; can open that cage door and bring on the courage to step out and spread your wings. Once you get a taste of flying, you will never want to go back into that cage again.  Furthermore, you will realize that you have been living a lie your entire life.  Birds that fly are LIVING LIFE, not dying inside a cage that is slowly losing oxygen!  

You could look at stepping out of the cage as getting out of your comfort zone, overcoming a fear, deciding to do something you otherwise thought impossible, taking a step (or leap) of faith, choosing to LIVE, defeating negative words others have spoke over you in the past, stepping into purpose or becoming reborn.  The bottom line is that whether you have lived in a cage your whole life or found yourself making a home there; you still have time to get out and truly reach higher than you ever have before or at least in a long time!  

Some birds don't get a choice to ever get out of the cage, but YOU have a CHOICE!  You can make your free will your greatest blessing or your worst curse!  There is "one" who wants us to remain caged and de-winged our whole lives never even scrapping the surface of what's possible!  As 1 of my mentor's said, "All you are given in this life is a dash between 2 dates and it is up to you to decide what you are going to do with that dash."