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What do you think about impact of the phrase 'nothing is impossible if you work hard enough' ?
Replies
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I'm going to assume you didn't mean it as such, but the bolded is an incredibly cold thing to say to someone who just described how hard they have already worked to overcome a physical limitation.
Acknowledging your limitations and working hard to reach more appropriate goals is a far cry from giving up.
Eh. Only if you frame "giving up" as something bad. I've given up on a lot of things over the years. I'm not trying to become an astronaut or a ballerina. Giving up on those dreams allows me to spend my time and energy in other ways, working toward goals that are reachable. Community theater. Portuguese. Tap dance.3 -
WorkerDrone83 wrote: »
LOL. I don't either. Especially since I'm in agreement with everything you just said. (With exception to the word empathy. I think sympathy is more applicable)
Right. I feel bad (sympathy) when I would see someone who could not run, jump etc. It turned into empathy (experiencing the feelings of others) when I tore my acl in my knee and could not run, jump etc...
Now that I am recovered, I feel a great sense of gratitude for my working knee again...3 -
Yes, I think it is literally untrue that accepting something is impossible means you've essentially given up.
If I really want to be a professional hockey player, and as a 44 yr old woman I accept that that would be impossible, I could just give up. But if instead I decide my goal is just to become a good hockey player, so I take skating lessons and join an amateur women's league and continue playing and improving for the rest of my life, how is that giving up? I think having realistic goals is way more motivating than aspirational way-out-there goals that may very well keep you banging into a brick wall. I'm sure that's different for different people.
I'm going to have to plead ignorance about women's hockey here. Is there a way to move from an amateur women's league to a professional one? If there is, then you didn't accept that it was impossible because you've been working hard to achieve that goal. If there isn't, then yes, you gave up on being a professional hockey player but you're doing well in another league.
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I don't really now what's gong on in this thread, but to answer the OP...I haven't heard that phrase since I was a kid. which is where I would think such a phrase would be more applicable...obviously, you grow up and as you grow up you realize you have certain limitations, whatever those may be.
I just tell my kids that if they're doing their best, then they're doing it right.5 -
WorkerDrone83 wrote: »
I'm going to have to plead ignorance about women's hockey here. Is it possible to move from an amateur women's league to a professional one? If it is, then you didn't accept that it was impossible because you've been working hard to achieve that goal. If it's not possible, then yes, you gave up on being a professional hockey player but you're doing well in another league.
You and I clearly have very different ways of looking at the world, so I think I'm just going to leave it at that. :drinker:2 -
You and I clearly have very different ways of looking at the world, so I think I'm just going to leave it at that. :drinker:
Haha. Deal
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cwolfman13 wrote: »I don't really now what's gong on in this thread, but to answer the OP...I haven't heard that phrase since I was a kid. which is where I would think such a phrase would be more applicable...obviously, you grow up and as you grow up you realize you have certain limitations, whatever those may be.
I just tell my kids that if they're doing their best, then they're doing it right.
Bravo!1 -
Yes, I think it is literally untrue that accepting something is impossible means you've essentially given up.
Me too.
I think it's impossible that I will ever win the Boston Marathon. But I still think it would be fun to run it, and I plan to work to qualify for it (and the qualifying time gets slower as one ages, so I have that going for me). That I accept that some things are impossible (I'm not going to win it), does not mean I have given up or have nothing to work for.
My mother is 75, chronically ill, has had mobility problems for a while and is now recovering from a broken hip. I'm sure she believes that running any marathon is not possible for her, and I suspect that's true. But she CAN work at walking again, or using a walker, or whatever seems realistic now (and goals can be adjusted or added as some are achieved).
I don't get the idea that we must pretend there are no limits to be able to achieve things.3 -
Re sympathy vs. empathy. I see sympathy as feeling bad for someone, and empathy as trying to put yourself in their place, imagine what it's like to be them. I don't share the physical limitations that my mother does, but I have talked to her about how she feels and can try to think about what it would be like to have those limitations. That's not, IMO, mere sympathy, but empathy, which I think is more helpful. (I really dislike thinking someone feels sorry for me for something I'm struggling with (for a loved one dying or something would be different), and that's not what I'm talking about.)1
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lemurcat12 wrote: »
Me too.
I think it's impossible that I will ever win the Boston Marathon. But I still think it would be fun to run it, and I plan to work to qualify for it (and the qualifying time gets slower as one ages, so I have that going for me). That I accept that some things are impossible (I'm not going to win it), does not mean I have given up or have nothing to work for.
My mother is 75, chronically ill, has had mobility problems for a while and is now recovering from a broken hip. I'm sure she believes that running any marathon is not possible for her, and I suspect that's true. But she CAN work at walking again, or using a walker, or whatever seems realistic now (and goals can be adjusted or added as some are achieved).
I don't get the idea that we must pretend there are no limits to be able to achieve things.
Well let's dive in. Do you honestly want to win the Boston Marathon? If it was something that you've always wanted to do and it was your passion, you probably would have been training your butt off zealously for a very long time.
Perhaps the saying needs to have a PS "Nothing is impossible if you work hard enough... but your windows of opportunity will shrink drastically and rapidly and you may have a much harder time than others"
It's pretty common to misuse the various levels of compassion:
Pity- I feel sorry for you
Sympathy- I understand pain
Empathy - I feel your pain5 -
One of the writing prompts I assign my sophomores is "Failure." It asks them to reflect on and write about giving up:
Some people say that you should never give up. Others disagree. How do you decide whether to keep trying or stop? Explain, with examples from history, your own experience, and the literature we have studied.
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WorkerDrone83 wrote: »
Well let's dive in. Do you honestly want to win the Boston Marathon? If it was something that you've always wanted to do and it was your passion, you probably would have been training your butt off zealously for a very long time.
No, I don't really, but that doesn't mean it would be possible if I decided I really did. I don't think recognizing that there are limits means you are giving up. There are other goals and trade offs, as I said way, way upthread.It's pretty common to misuse the various levels of compassion:
Pity- I feel sorry for you
Sympathy- I understand pain
Empathy - I feel your pain
Yes, that's how I was using empathy, basically. As OED says: "empathy: the power of projecting one's personality into (and so fully comprehending) the object of contemplation." Perhaps impossible, but can be worth trying -- walking in someone else's shoes or imagining yourself in them. OED has "fellow feeling" or "being affected by the feelings of other" for sympathy. I don't mean the latter. When I say recognize that you (meaning all of us) have some blessings that not everyone shares, I don't mean "and then feel bad for them" or even "understand how they feel." I mean be aware of those differences and how they might be experiencing things, how they might not find things as easy as you do, or have certain basic knowledge you do. It's about being aware that not everyone is the same and not just thinking "I did it, if someone else didn't, they obviously didn't try hard enough."
But whatever, if you get my point I don't care if we want to use different words. (Same with the "it's not privilege, it's whatever" argument.)0 -
WorkerDrone83 wrote: »
I was actually using the very same definition for privilege (thank you Google) I see you're focusing on the word "advantage." I was focusing on "special right" and "available only to a particular person or group."
I'm fairly sure I wasn't saying that you, specifically, were making excuses. Honestly the thought didn't cross my mind, so I'm sorry if I was sloppy in my communication.
If you've already accepted something as impossible, you've essentially given up. Maybe the cure for what ails you hasn't been discovered yet and won't be in our lifetime. But maybe it will.
One man's giving up and quitting is another man's accepting reality.
Is this still about pulling yourself up by your bootstraps and achieving anything, or is this now a pissing contest to see who can fool themselves into believing the hardest?
I'm a realist. You're not. If a cure becomes available, I'll adjust my expectations. Until then, what you said about a potential cure has nothing to do with what I'm capable and not capable of doing within my current situation and limits, which was the original topic of conversation. Individual effort and all that.
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lemurcat12 wrote: »
If I acknowledge that I have some privileges that not everyone has (health being one) and have been lucky in some ways (if you prefer to call it that), that doesn't mean I'm calling myself a jerk or expecting others to feel resentful. You are sure imposing a lot on one word. It also does not mean that I think I haven't faced some hardships that not everyone has or had some struggles or had to work hard.
I think acknowledging and being grateful for the blessings I have (which, yes, can be called privileges) is basic human decency, and understanding that not everyone shares in them is basic empathy. Insisting that because you did something everyone obviously could if they weren't a lazy so and so seems to be the alternative.
I honestly don't even get what is currently being debated on this thread anymore.
^This.
The latest introduction of the argument that I'm just a lazy butted quitter for not holding out for a cure for my disease has me sitting her with my mouth agape.4 -
WorkerDrone83 wrote: »
Cold perhaps, but is it untrue? Don't get me wrong, I think it's phenomenal that she went from walking with a cane to being a runner. I wonder if she ever heard from the doc that she wouldn't be able to do that. If she did, she clearly didn't accept that.
No, I didn't hear that from a doctor. I told her I wanted to start a graded exercise program and to hopefully be able to walk without the cane. She was encouraging. Progress was slow but steady.
She didn't want me to run when I weighed more because it was too much pressure on my joints. She was fine with it once I lost weight.
My doctor is the one who has done the mobility assessment with me regarding the issues I've had with certain lifts in weight lifting (and crochet, oddly enough).
We tried cortisone injections. They didn't help.0 -
Yes, I think it is literally untrue that accepting something is impossible means you've essentially given up.
If I really want to be a professional hockey player, and as a 44 yr old woman I accept that that would be impossible, I could just give up. But if instead I decide my goal is just to become a good hockey player, so I take skating lessons and join an amateur women's league and continue playing and improving for the rest of my life, how is that giving up? I think having realistic goals is way more motivating than aspirational way-out-there goals that may very well keep you banging into a brick wall. I'm sure that's different for different people.
Spot on. This is what I've been trying to say when I've said I'm a realist.
The examples I've given is that I'll never be able to do ATG squats for example.
What I haven't shared here is how hard I've been working for 3 years to get my squat to parallel and to not have my knees cave in and how I'm finally there.
That was a realistic goal given my mobility issues. ATG squats weren't.
Here's another lifting related goal thingy: lifting heavy gives me exertional migraines. (I suffer chronic migraines anyway, so it's just a trigger I have to accept.) I have tried. Goodness knows, I've tried. I just do not get on with it. So, I lift moderate weights in the 8-12 rep range.
Am I giving up? Nope. I'm setting realistic goals and making progress with them. I am doing my personal best.5 -
GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »
^This.
The latest introduction of the argument that I'm just a lazy butted quitter for not holding out for a cure for my disease has me sitting her with my mouth agape.
I guess I'm a lazy butted quitter because I haven't regrown my colon yet since nothing is impossible5 -
singingflutelady wrote: »
I guess I'm a lazy butted quitter because I haven't regrown my colon yet since nothing is impossible
Who knows, maybe someday, they'll come up with artificial colons. You're just a quitter because you've given up hope!!!!!!!
(Am I doing the sarcasm font correctly?)1 -
GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »
Who knows, maybe someday, they'll come up with artificial colons. You're just a quitter because you've given up hope!!!!!!!
(Am I doing the sarcasm font correctly?)
Lol it would be of no use unless they find a cure for crohn's first as it's autoimmune and would attack a new colon.0 -
Spunk is great. Is it failure if high ambition is brought low by reality? Aiming high means you still end up better off than if you did nothing. Frankly, I think we learn a great deal more from our failures.
https://www.ted.com/talks/viktor_frankl_youth_in_search_of_meaning
Michael J. Fox has Parkinson's. He has spunk. He's not expecting to have a cure in his lifetime, but he did the next best thing. He started a foundation and acquired all sorts of funding to find a cure.4 -
singingflutelady wrote: »
Lol it would be of no use unless they find a cure for crohn's first as it's autoimmune and would attack a new colon.
Geez, you're such a quitter. Try harder!
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singingflutelady wrote: »
Lol it would be of no use unless they find a cure for crohn's first as it's autoimmune and would attack a new colon.
Funny thing that, my problem is autoimmune as well. I guess we're both just lazy quitters.1 -
Whoa, I never called anyone a lazy quitter. If someone took personal offense to that comment in the context it was used, that's telling for them.
The phrase isn't "Nothing is impossible if you want it hard enough."
I'm not disputing that some things are no longer possible for individuals. But it's likely they were or could have been, if the effort was truly made.3 -
See, that still comes across as "quitter". If the effort was TRULY made?
How about the astronaut program where hundreds apply and only a few make it to space? Did the rest just not try HARD enough? I contend that ALL the candidates in the astronaut program are worthy and gave their best. It just so happens that a FEW will make it to space, but ALL of them will make worthy contributions.
I'm a huge fan of Chris Hadfield and he has a great book about success. I'm not against shooting for high goals. But many of life's consequences are out of our control.
We had one Superman in a wheelchair because of a riding accident. Did he just not TRULY, TRY hard enough?3 -
See, that still comes across as "quitter". If the effort was TRULY made?
How about the astronaut program where hundreds apply and only a few make it to space? Did the rest just not try HARD enough? I contend that ALL the candidates in the astronaut program are worthy and gave their best. It just so happens that a FEW will make it to space, but ALL of them will make worthy contributions.
I'm a huge fan of Chris Hadfield and he has a great book about success. I'm not against shooting for high goals. But many of life's consequences are out of our control.
We had one Superman in a wheelchair because of a riding accident. Did he just not TRULY, TRY hard enough?
I don't think it comes off as "quitter" it just comes off as "no, they didn't try hard enough." I'm sure they all worked hard, but some obviously worked harder (and probably smarter) than others.
Not sure where you're going with the Chris Reeves comment.3 -
WorkerDrone83 wrote: »
I don't think it comes off as "quitter" it just comes off as "no, they didn't try hard enough." I'm sure they all worked hard, but some obviously worked harder (and probably smarter) than others.
Not sure where you're going with the Chris Reeves comment.
You've got a lot to learn, grasshopper.3 -
WorkerDrone83 wrote: »If you've already accepted something as impossible, you've essentially given up.
this isn't true. but you seem to have an extraordinarily binary kind of mindset, at least about specific things. so i'm not sure if i'm wasting my time even getting interested in this particular facet of the discussion.
i guess the nuance you seem unwilling to accept is: people can accept a specific outcome as impossible, but not necessarily give up on the activity. i guess you don't see it that way, but people have provided whole strings of real-life examples which to me illustrate there's a great deal of variance from your absolute rule quite nicely. basically: the entire world is not you. and that's why conversations are usually more productive than 'debates' and attempts to reduce everything to one single absolute 'truth'.
you can actually quite safely allow people to be contemptuous of the rah-rah-rah thing. or even to just find it irrelevant. for people who do have their own internal motivations it's genuinely unnecessary. so there's absolutely no reason to fear the entire human species will go to hell in a handbasket unless they're deluded and lied to in order to keep them all 'motivated'.
that's probably where my own pushback centres, actually. i think you said something about 'but if we don't lie to people about what is possible, they'll never do anything' and that's just inherently insulting to someone who does stuff for their own reasons and sets their own internal standards all on their own.5 -
Not heard that before but i like it
Another thing I always say to my son, "practice makes progress..."
I use practice makes perfect. I say this to my daughter all the time
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canadianlbs wrote: »
this isn't true. but you seem to have an extraordinarily binary kind of mindset, at least about specific things. so i'm not sure if i'm wasting my time even getting interested in this particular facet of the discussion.
i guess the nuance you seem unwilling to accept is: people can accept a specific outcome as impossible, but not necessarily give up on the activity. i guess you don't see it that way, but people have provided whole strings of real-life examples which to me illustrate there's a great deal of variance from your absolute rule quite nicely. basically: the entire world is not you. and that's why conversations are usually more productive than 'debates' and attempts to reduce everything to one single absolute 'truth'.
you can actually quite safely allow people to be contemptuous of the rah-rah-rah thing. or even to just find it irrelevant. for people who do have their own internal motivations it's genuinely unnecessary. so there's absolutely no reason to fear the entire human species will go to hell in a handbasket unless they're deluded and lied to in order to keep them all 'motivated'.
that's probably where my own pushback centres, actually. i think you said something about 'but if we don't lie to people about what is possible, they'll never do anything' and that's just inherently insulting to someone who does stuff for their own reasons and sets their own internal standards all on their own.
Oh c'mon, that's just hurtful implying that you're wasting time getting interested in this particular facet of the discussion. You don't give yourself enough credit, either.
I do understand the nuance you discussed, but 'bench-pressing 300lbs' and 'being really good at pressing 185' are different things. I don't want to seem like I'm disregarding the effort people are putting forth, but I'm also doubtful that many actually put in the kind of single-minded tenacity, focus, zealotry, and sacrifice that can be required to meet the definition of "hard enough."
I don't think I quite understand the rest of your comment (it's early and I'm still drinking my coffee). I'm not sure if anyone is trying to use the common saying to control the masses or anything. I fully agree that people have their own motivations, to the point that I believe that true motivation can ONLY come from within.
I certainly didn't say that we should lie to people. What would be the point of that? If John Doe in Nebraska doesn't strive to reach his goals, that's no skin off my back.5 -
Therealobi1 wrote: »Not heard that before but i like it
I use practice makes perfect. I say this to my daughter all the time
The older I get the more I believe there is no such thing as perfect. That said, we can more often then not make progress. I also tell him, "never let perfect get in the way of really good..."
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