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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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1. As the phrase 'nothing is impossible if you work hard enough' is not literally true (we wouldn't tell someone who is blind that they could see if they worked hard enough, for example), what do you assume the 'real' meaning of this phrase usually is? And I'd use this for variations of this idea, too - 'you can do anything if you put your mind to it,' 'all you need is hard work in order to succeed in life,' and so on.
So...what does this phrase mean to you?
It means I'm the only person standing between me and my potential.2. When you hear phrases like this used, is the general tone positive or negative, or somewhere in between?
Generally the context it'd be used is when a person starts making excuses, oh my thyroid; my metabolism, I don't have time, I don't feel like it, etc.4. Based on how you hear it being used most often, do you think this phrase promotes a certain type of attitude among people who exercise, and if so, is it a good one?
It promotes taking responsibilities for oneself, so yes, it's a good one. Yes obviously you will never run faster than Usain Bolt, or exceed your genetics, but that is usually implied by context.6 -
I too have only heard it said to children.1
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WorkerDrone83 wrote: »Wow, I did not expect to be in the minority on this one. That's a perfectly positive phrase and I've found it to be mostly true. The other variant I've heard once was "If someone REALLY wants to do something, that person is going to do it REALLY well." I'm not sure if intelligence, dedication, and strong work ethic counts as 'privilege.'
You look young and healthy.
That might be why you think anything is possible.
That's also a privileged position, whether you realize it or not.
No matter how badly I want it, or how hard I work, I'll never be able to lunge to full depth or squat ATG, for example. I'm older with two forms of arthritis, and my joints will only take me so far.
Now I have gone from walking with a cane to running, so while *that* was possible, I don't think ANYTHING is possible. In fact, I know it isn't.
Mind you, I'm not pulling some victimized thing here. I just know that I have limits due to a medical condition. That's facing reality. I'm not bitter or anything like that.
I just don't like trite, pat little sayings like this. There are lots of things people face. I think the important thing is to do your best, whatever your circumstances are. I may not be able to do everything, but I'm doing far more than I ever thought I could, and I think that's pretty damned awesome enough.11 -
1. As the phrase 'nothing is impossible if you work hard enough' is not literally true (we wouldn't tell someone who is blind that they could see if they worked hard enough, for example), what do you assume the 'real' meaning of this phrase usually is? And I'd use this for variations of this idea, too - 'you can do anything if you put your mind to it,' 'all you need is hard work in order to succeed in life,' and so on.
So...what does this phrase mean to you?
2. When you hear phrases like this used, is the general tone positive or negative, or somewhere in between?
Like, positive might be encouraging someone who is feeling like they will never meet their health goals, and reminding them that they are working hard so they are going to see results. Negative might be shaming someone who hadn't met their goals, implying that they would be doing better if they had been working harder.
3. Based on how you hear it being used most often, do you think this phrase promotes a certain type of attitude among people who exercise, and if so, is it a good one?
I'd say it's a poorly crafted aphorism, intended to be inspiring, but rather coming across as insipid, trite, and cliched.13 -
GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »
You look young and healthy.
That might be why you think anything is possible.
That's also a privileged position, whether you realize it or not.
No matter how badly I want it, or how hard I work, I'll never be able to lunge to full depth or squat ATG, for example. I'm older with two forms of arthritis, and my joints will only take me so far.
Now I have gone from walking with a cane to running, so while *that* was possible, I don't think ANYTHING is possible. In fact, I know it isn't.
Mind you, I'm not pulling some victimized thing here. I just know that I have limits due to a medical condition. That's facing reality. I'm not bitter or anything like that.
I just don't like trite, pat little sayings like this. There are lots of things people face. I think the important thing is to do your best, whatever your circumstances are. I may not be able to do everything, but I'm doing far more than I ever thought I could, and I think that's pretty damned awesome enough.
Indeed. We don't have control over a great many things. Winning, losing, genetic, medical conditions etc. What we do have control over is the effort we put forth in achieving our goals, whatever they may be. As long as you give it your absolute best (and deep down we know wether or not we do) you can hold your head up high and be content with who you are at this moment...4 -
WorkerDrone83 wrote: »That's a perfectly positive phrase and I've found it to be mostly true... I'm not sure if intelligence, dedication, and strong work ethic counts as 'privilege.'
For you, it's awesome that this has mostly held true in your life. No sarcasm intended; seriously, glad that this has worked for you.
I just wanted to address really briefly how you expressed your idea of privilege, though, because I think it's relevant to the discussion, actually.
IMO, privilege is just basically saying that a person got an easier difficulty setting on their 'video game of life.' If a person is white, there are difficulty settings that are easier for them than they are for someone whose black, for example. And it's the setting, not the individual experience, that we talk about. Where it's not what happens to one person, but the ODDS of something happening overall, so it impacts the 'world,' and people, as a whole, even with outliers in individuals.
So things like the odds that a cop will pull you over when you are not speeding. Odds that you will get a positive/negative response from someone based on your skin tone. Odds that you will start the game with more gold. Odds that you will be offered good quests, or that your quests will have good loot. Odds that a 'guild' will accept you as a member. All of this is involved in the difficulty setting of life, or the privilege in life, if that makes sense?
And from my experience, the thing people have a problem with, in statements like 'nothing is impossible if you work hard enough,' is that if you take two people who work just as hard, are just as smart, and just as dedicated, you will have wildly different results for them depending on a lot of factors that are not in their control. Many times, it's the difficulty setting/privilege. Sometimes, it's flat out luck. Working hard IS part of the process, don't get me wrong. Things are much less likely to happen without hard work.
But hard work is not the defining factor of success, I guess is what I'm saying. It's simply one of many factors involved.
This guy I thought had a pretty good article on his views on the subject that I think express my own thoughts.
https://medium.com/@tomnew/nothing-is-impossible-if-you-work-hard-enough-*kitten*-4fdf4d83937dlemurcat12 wrote: »Given the anger about it, I am curious in what context people are being told "nothing is impossible if you work hard enough." Thinking more, I really can't imagine a scenario in which someone has said it to me, or would.
When I've had variations of this theme said to me, it's usually not so much 'nothing is impossible,' and more 'THIS thing is completely possible if you work hard enough.' And what is 'possible' starts to encompass so much that it essentially becomes 'everything is possible' or 'nothing is impossible.'
In my own experience, it is never used with the caveat of 'within the limits of physical reality,' as the one poster considered it, because so many people apply that consideration only in the most obvious sense. Blindness, for example
But for things that are less obvious, far too many times I have seen people use their own reality as the yardstick for someone else's reality, and also assume that any differences don't make a differences, and quite frequently it isn't true. The more different two people are, the more their reality is probably not the same. And for folks whose reality differs from the majority of people around them - people who have chronic illness and are exercising in a gym, for example - they are going to have a REALLY different reality from those around them.
I think of some folks with chronic pain, who expend huge amounts of energy just to physically get through the day. And then I see an athlete, who is expending no more energy during their day than these folks with chronic pain are, but people look at what the athlete can accomplish, and what the ill person can accomplish, and they assume the athlete worked harder. Which completely dismisses the effort the ill person has done. I think that's one of the main reasons for a lot of the frustration and anger, you know?
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Sounds like a good way to encourage someone to overexert themselves.3
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How about Yoda's "Do. Or do not. There is no try."4
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I say it to my kids. They know what their weaknesses are and their strengths. It is nice to see my youngest(13) running the track practice for soccer where as the other children are walking cause they are "too tired"!!!! 13 and TOO LAZY and this Mama is proud her boys believe they have it in them to go far in life...as long as they try
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If I'm dragging my heels out of laziness or lack of confidence, sometimes a phrase like that can get me out of my funk. If I say it to me.
I'm uncoordinated and lousy at sports. I recall sitting across the table from someone at a friend's house who was touting the benefits of playing tennis, kept insisting that I could be really good 'if I only committed to it and worked at it', that 'nothing is impossible if I keep trying'. And I'm sitting there trying to be polite while thinking, "Um... no. This isn't something I'm going to be good at. Or want to be. I can spend hours practicing something that's going to frustrate me and maybe move from 'total klutz' to 'sort of mediocre'. Or I can take the time I'd be spending on tennis and channel it into something I'm actually good at and get results I want."
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I think it's fine to say to kids. They don't get the nuances of reality, and its inspiring. By the time they're old enough to work out that it's actually completely untrue, it will just be in the same basket as the myriad of other things you fibbed to them about, so it won't matter.6
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I believe it because I've experienced it in many areas in my life. Not only with weight loss, but things that might have held me back because of my age, sex, race. I've worked my butt off, pushed through and have excelled because I wanted it bad. It has not been easy though. Lots of sacrifice and nothing has been given to me.
I would not tell others that nothing impossible, but I know for myself it is true.9 -
I'm thinking the reason we mostly say this to kids is because that's when everyone has the most potential. I'm sure we can all acknowledge that windows of opportunity get smaller as we get older, but c'mon it's a little ridiculous for someone in their middle years to feel burned that they're not going to be a star athlete when they haven't been putting in the work for decades.
Perhaps this is a glass half-empty/half-full kind of thing. Anyone who's read any self-help books would know the positive impact of visualizing goals instead of just writing them off.
As for the whole privilege thing? I'm not disputing that the difficulty setting is different for everyone, regardless of race, gender, $, etc. But it's too easy to let 'privilege' be an excuse. So it's going to be more difficult for you than it is for others. Doesn't mean you can't do it.
Final note, I've always believed that hard work alone is not the determining factor to success. Everybody would rather work smarter, than harder but if you're doing both, I think the odds are you're probably doing better than your peers. And as for some people just being lucky? To throw out another trite phrase "Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity."7 -
WorkerDrone83 wrote: »I'm thinking the reason we mostly say this to kids is because that's when everyone has the most potential. I'm sure we can all acknowledge that windows of opportunity get smaller as we get older, but c'mon it's a little ridiculous for someone in their middle years to feel burned that they're not going to be a star athlete when they haven't been putting in the work for decades.
Perhaps this is a glass half-empty/half-full kind of thing. Anyone who's read any self-help books would know the positive impact of visualizing goals instead of just writing them off.
As for the whole privilege thing? I'm not disputing that the difficulty setting is different for everyone, regardless of race, gender, $, etc. But it's too easy to let 'privilege' be an excuse. So it's going to be more difficult for you than it is for others. Doesn't mean you can't do it.
Final note, I've always believed that hard work alone is not the determining factor to success. Everybody would rather work smarter, than harder but if you're doing both, I think the odds are you're probably doing better than your peers. And as for some people just being lucky? To throw out another trite phrase "Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity."
There's the magic word. Not everyone gets the same opportunities. Sad but true.
Still though, work hard and do your best. Let the rest be what it will be...10 -
There's the magic word. Not everyone gets the same opportunities. Sad but true.
Still though, work hard and do your best. Let the rest be what it will be...
That may be true, but I pass by 4-6 opportunities a week that I can't exploit because my time and other resources are already directed at other opportunities. Some of those opportunities are time sensitive, some are not. Most of the nots are still around days or weeks later.
Opportunity knocks every day.
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stanmann571 wrote: »
That may be true, but I pass by 4-6 opportunities a week that I can't exploit because my time and other resources are already directed at other opportunities. Some of those opportunities are time sensitive, some are not. Most of the nots are still around days or weeks later.
Opportunity knocks every day.
Does not change the fact that some are not afforded the same opportunities. That said, it is not an excuse not to do your best...4 -
Does not change the fact that some are not afforded the same opportunities...
Just because they aren't being seized doesn't meant they're not available.
The opportunities I'm talking about are generally available to anyone. They aren't secret or hidden, But hundreds of people walk past them and don't take them.3 -
stanmann571 wrote: »
Just because they aren't being seized doesn't meant they're not available.
The opportunities I'm talking about are generally available to anyone. They aren't secret or hidden, But hundreds of people walk past them and don't take them.
And the ones I am talking about are not. Again, not an excuse not to work hard and do your best. Sometimes in life all you can do is work with the hand you were dealt...4 -
There are certain things though that people may be disadvantanged physically regardless of how dedicated and determined they are.WorkerDrone83 wrote: »Wow, I did not expect to be in the minority on this one. That's a perfectly positive phrase and I've found it to be mostly true. The other variant I've heard once was "If someone REALLY wants to do something, that person is going to do it REALLY well." I'm not sure if intelligence, dedication, and strong work ethic counts as 'privilege.'
I've seen just ONE guy who was 5'2" dunk a basketball. Genetic freak in jumping. The average 5'2" guy isn't going to achieve that regardless of how much effort and dedication they put in because jumping up almost 60 inches vertically for someone that height is improbable.
I'm not saying that hard work and effort DON'T pay off. I see it often with people I deal with. But I also have to temper expectations with them.
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WorkerDrone83 wrote: »Wow, I did not expect to be in the minority on this one. That's a perfectly positive phrase and I've found it to be mostly true. The other variant I've heard once was "If someone REALLY wants to do something, that person is going to do it REALLY well." I'm not sure if intelligence, dedication, and strong work ethic counts as 'privilege.'
There are an awful lot of other privileges, the lack of which can make achieving the promise of this phrase logistically improbable.4 -
There are an awful lot of other privileges, the lack of which can make achieving the promise of this phrase logistically improbable.
Besides the fact that the bolded are not privileges...
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Besides the fact that the bolded are not privileges...
Obviously, I agree. I think people's definition of privilege is too broad. If it's not something that is given to only select people and denied to others, that's not privilege.0 -
Besides the fact that the bolded are not privileges...
Depends on who you ask.1 -
Intelligence is probably a privilege. I know I am sometimes unfair (when frustrated with someone else) in attributing to "not trying" or "intentionally being obtuse" things that sometimes just are a matter of intelligence or aptitude. I loved school and currently have a job that tends to appeal to people who loved school (uses many of the same skills) and saying "well, anyone else could have the exact same job I do, if they'd just bothered" is not actually true. Which of course isn't that important, since there are many other ways to make a living.
estherdragon's point about it being so frustrating to work at something you know you will only be mediocre at best at is worth considering too. I'm bad at a lot of team sports in part because I did not work at them, but I did not work at them because I believe I would never have gotten more than eh at them and the work is unpleasant to me. Finding something I enjoy (running and biking and other solitary sports, not team things) was important for me. Similarly, I enjoy singing but am not musical, so haven't really worked at getting good or fooled myself I can. I sing privately, instead. ;-)
There are things I wish I'd worked harder at despite a seeming lack of aptitude (learning another language), but it always comes with a tradeoff.5 -
stanmann571 wrote: »
Depends on who you ask.
No...3 -
I would put intelligence in the category of circumstance rather then privilege...2
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lemurcat12 wrote: »Intelligence is probably a privilege. I know I am sometimes unfair (when frustrated with someone else) in attributing to "not trying" or "intentionally being obtuse" things that sometimes just are a matter of intelligence or aptitude. I loved school and currently have a job that tends to appeal to people who loved school (uses many of the same skills) and saying "well, anyone else could have the exact same job I do, if they'd just bothered" is not actually true. Which of course isn't that important, since there are many other ways to make a living.
estherdragon's point about it being so frustrating to work at something you know you will only be mediocre at best at is worth considering too. I'm bad at a lot of team sports in part because I did not work at them, but I did not work at them because I believe I would never have gotten more than eh at them and the work is unpleasant to me. Finding something I enjoy (running and biking and other solitary sports, not team things) was important for me. Similarly, I enjoy singing but am not musical, so haven't really worked at getting good or fooled myself I can. I sing privately, instead. ;-)
There are things I wish I'd worked harder at despite a seeming lack of aptitude (learning another language), but it always comes with a tradeoff.
Same story here. I'm bad at fine coordination, but have little physical fear and relatively good balance(made better with practice), So throwing and catching a ball are out and hitting one with a stick is WAY out. So running/walking/gymnastic type skills are where I put my energies.3 -
No...
Yeah, it does. Many people assert that the ability/willingness to hustle and keep at something are a sign of privilege.3 -
stanmann571 wrote: »
Yeah, it does. Many people assert that the ability/willingness to hustle and keep at something are a sign of privilege.
Agree to disagree...2 -
stanmann571 wrote: »
Yeah, it does. Many people assert that the ability/willingness to hustle and keep at something are a sign of privilege.
Whoa, this blows my mind. I don't mean to put you on the spot, but how is not being a lazy quitter a privilege?6
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