Limits

Limits--in real life and in mathematics, the definitions of the word are so different. In our everyday lives, we refer to limits as lines--they are regions that we don't dare step over, like the edge of a cliff. In mathematics on the other hand, it is where something would be if it followed a given pattern, the function, as it is.

So why do we use these two definitions so differently? If, for example, we applied the mathematical definition to a real-life situation. So when the question of "where does the limit lie?" becomes one of what follows the pattern, not where the pattern ends. Then there is no cliff....even in functions that go infinitely far or approach a limit, the function is most often continuous, it smoothly approaches that limit.

There is no jump, there is just a point it doesn't hit. If you try to follow the function beyond that point, it simply doesn't work, you can't get past it, the function doesn't exist. So why do we constantly talk in life about transcending limits? Why do we talk about stepping over the line? I've had countless conversations that run like this:

"How far would you go?"
"I want to know, I want to find that limit, but I'm not willing to transcend that line."

Is it a question of desire to cross the line (which may or may not actually exist), or is it rather one of a region we cannot reach, one that we prevent ourselves, mentally, physically, or emotionally, from reaching? I guess my whole question is one of whether it is even possible to reach our "limits," whatever those may be. And I don't have an answer. I don't even have a theory. Hopefully I'll actually remember at one point to come back to this and think about it again, but for now, I'm left wondering.