John O’Donohue gave voice to the connection between beauty and those edges of life–thresholds was the word he loved–where the fullness of reality becomes more stark and more clear. If you go back to the etymology of the word “threshold, ” it comes from “threshing, ” which is to separate the grain from the husk. So the threshold, in a way, is a place where you move into more critical and challenging and worthy fullness. There are huge thresholds in every life. You know that, for instance, if you are in the middle of your life in a busy evening, fifty things to do and you get a phone call that somebody you love is suddenly dying, it takes ten seconds to communicate that information. But when you put the phone down, you are already standing in a different world. Suddenly everything that seems so important before is all gone and now you are thinking of this. So the given world that we think is there and the solid ground we are on is so tentative. And a threshold is a line which separates two territories of spirit, and very often how we cross is the key thing. Krista Tippett
About This Quote

It is really difficult to cross that threshold. Sometimes we cross the threshold and we do not realize what we have crossed. Sometimes we cross it and we fall down. But most of the times we fail to cross it and we never realize what we have crossed.

For example, if someone wants to learn Italian language, he/she will have difficulties in learning Italian language because it has a lot of different words and many sentences which are not understandable for us. So it will be easier if the person knows at least English because then he/she can understand most of the words and sentences of the English language than if he/she doesn’t know English then he/she cannot understand most of the words and sentences of Italian language. This shows that it is very difficult to learn a foreign language because you have to learn a lot of new things which you don’t know.

But sometimes a person crosses a threshold and realizes what has crossed. A person who wanted to learn Italian language but had problems in learning Italian language will say: “Aha! I have crossed a threshold!� After crossing that threshold he/she will realize that there is a lot of things which they don’t know about this world about Italian language and they will try again to learn more about this language.

Source: Becoming Wise: An Inquiry Into The Mystery And Art Of Living

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