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What do you think about impact of the phrase 'nothing is impossible if you work hard enough' ?
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GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »WorkerDrone83 wrote: »GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »WorkerDrone83 wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »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.
Besides the fact that the bolded are not privileges...
Depends on who you ask.
No...
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?
There's a big yawning gulf of a spectrum between being a lazy quitter and being a dedicated hustler.
At some places on that spectrum, things like physical and mental disabilities can impact one's ability and or willingness to hustle. Not having such a physical or mental impairment is privilege.
Respectfully disagree. The absence of disabilities should not be viewed as privilege, unless we're using a really loose definition of privilege where a vast majority of people qualify.
All this talk of privilege is getting old. So people have some advantages that others don't. That's life. A lot of us weren't born with silver spoons in our mouths, but that doesn't hold us back from success or reaching our goals. Seems like more of an excuse than an explanation.
As for the phrase in question, is it really so bad to offer up optimistic hope when people really can do things they think are impossible? Perhaps people really just don't want to see the flip-side of the coin, that if they don't reach their goals it's their own fault.
You just don't like the word privilege. Advantage is a synonym for privilege.priv·i·lege
ˈpriv(ə)lij/Submit
noun
1.
a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group of people.
"education is a right, not a privilege"
synonyms: advantage, benefit; More
Unfortunately the word privilege has become politicized, so when you use it some people think you are angling for freebies they can't get because they're "privileged".
I was raised to be grateful for every morning I wake up with 4 limbs, eyesight, and hearing and to go out of my way for people who carry burdens I don't have to. Sadly, it's popular now to assume anyone who can't carry their burdens gracefully is lazy and that helping them, weakens them. I have seen for myself that ironically, it often motivates them to work hard to reach goals they previously thought were impossible
Oh, I'm quite aware that social justice warriors have taken that word and twisted it and used it to death, but I really don't care.
I too was raised with an attitude of gratitude.
That is why I consider good things privileges, and always have, long before the word was used and misused in current terms. I won't let people's current sensitivities about it change how I'm using it. It is a privilege, in the real sense of the word to have health, and food security, and an education, and intelligence, and a roof over your head.
I feel privileged, in many ways to have accomplished what I have accomplished with my illness. Many other people who have it don't fare as well.
I won't let other people co-opt a perfectly good word.
ETA: If anyone wants a good chuckle, these values weren't just instilled at home. I went through 12 years of Catholic school. Those nuns told us we ought to feel blessed we had anything we had!
I have not only been fortunately healthy, I've known mostly other people who are equally blessed. One of the most valuable things I've learned on this forum are how many people are out there dealing with autoimmune conditions, food allergies, and all manner of chronic injuries and illness and how it affects their lives (and many of them look better in their gym clothes than I do). Which made me realize that if the receptionist at work or the guy in front of me in line at the grocery store were dealing with any of that, I wouldn't even know.1 -
stanmann571 wrote: »clicketykeys wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »WorkerDrone83 wrote: »GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »WorkerDrone83 wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »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.
Besides the fact that the bolded are not privileges...
Depends on who you ask.
No...
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?
There's a big yawning gulf of a spectrum between being a lazy quitter and being a dedicated hustler.
At some places on that spectrum, things like physical and mental disabilities can impact one's ability and or willingness to hustle. Not having such a physical or mental impairment is privilege.
Respectfully disagree. The absence of disabilities should not be viewed as privilege, unless we're using a really loose definition of privilege where a vast majority of people qualify.
All this talk of privilege is getting old. So people have some advantages that others don't. That's life. A lot of us weren't born with silver spoons in our mouths, but that doesn't hold us back from success or reaching our goals. Seems like more of an excuse than an explanation.
As for the phrase in question, is it really so bad to offer up optimistic hope when people really can do things they think are impossible? Perhaps people really just don't want to see the flip-side of the coin, that if they don't reach their goals it's their own fault.
But it IS a privilege to be able to climb stairs, walk up an inline, walk across uneven ground without falling, kneel on the floor, and climb ladders. The difficulty setting on the video game of life for the majority of people is set much lower than it is for some, and that's all that privilege is: how hard is your life based on the luck of draw when you were born.
My video game level is set up to be very easy in many ways. I'm very solidly middle class, I live in a first world country, I'm white, I'm taller than average, I'm educated and smart. I have a car, a smartphone, a large house, enough food, and don't have to work because my husband earns a lot of money, I have excellent health insurance. I'm young, but that will change with time.
My video game level is set up to be harder than others in a lot of ways too. I'm female, I'm fat (I'm working on that though), I'm unhealthy (some of this can be fixed, my diabetes will go into remission - my mental illness never will), I have moderately severe mental illness that does severely affect my quality of life (such as being able to hold down a job), I am not neurotypical, I have a birth defect in my knee limiting my ability to walk/climb stairs/hills/ladders, I have PTSD.
I will not likely by pulled over by the police for no reason because I'm white, but I am more likely to be sexually assaulted because I'm female. I lack the able-bodied privilege, but I have yet to be in a wheelchair so I have more privilege than some.
Everyone has privileges and disprivileges. Some have more privileges than others though. These privileges open up the opportunities that are given to us in life. It's not an excuse, it's a fact of life.
A friend works in the Dallas school district working with underprivileged children and helping them get to college. Without her intervention and VERY hard work, these children would not be able to jump through the hoops to take advantage of the opportunities that are there. These children are often the first in their family to go to college, and are not privileged enough to know where to start to apply for school. Even community college is out of reach for them, without her influence. Because of her, they are able to do the impossible. She uses HER privilege to give OTHERS privilege. But it's still privilege.
Because I grew up in a middle class family, I was expected, encouraged, and financially able to go to college, and thus able to marry into a middle class family. Because my husband has a good degree and a good job, we are now an upper middle class family. That opportunity would not have been mine had my father been a factory worker instead of a school teacher. I would not have met my husband had I not gone to college and pursued the major I chose, because he went to a different church.
From a practical perspective, she's harming these children and their families. Jumping multiple Maslow levels at once objectively causes harm, and does not bring the desired enduring benefit.
Unless she's working with them starting around the 4th or 6th grade, just attending college will not give them any benefit except to steal time and resources from them that could be better directed in other directions.
It's not her fault, or yours that her privilege doesn't allow her to recognize and address the real needs of this community.
Please explain how being the first in your family to go to college is "jumping multiple Maslow levels." (Note: Yes, I'm familiar with the hierarchy of needs.)
This.
The children that she's helped have gone on to graduate, some from ivy league institutions, with honors and now have very promising careers. These children are not the underachievers in school that she's scooping up from the bottom of the class and forcing into college, these are children that have the grades to get into Harvard with scholarships, but only lack the skills to know how to file a FASFA, apply for student aid, and so forth. They have worked for many years for the ability to go to college, and deserve these chances.
All their Maslow needs are met, they are just poor. She gives them a needed a leg up to reach the stars and their potential. I'm sorry you can't see that.
So she's a guidance counselor.
As I understand things (I may be misinformed, I was homeschooled (unfortunately, I was very unhappy there) so all I know of guidance counselors is what I've gleaned from the media, guidance counselors are typically limited to one school and service students of all socioeconomic statues. She works all over Dallas ISD and only works with the disadvantaged and often minority students.
Dallas has a huge problem with poverty, and her employer is part of a program designed to help lift families out of poverty through advanced schooling. She may be a guidance counselor, I honestly don't know, but only for a subset of children.0 -
WorkerDrone83 wrote: »What I don't agree with is the flagrant use of the term privilege. Are people who can walk supposed to feel like jerks because they have something that not everybody does? Should I feel resentful because I wasn't born with a trust fund?
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.2 -
Also, it's still just factually untrue that everyone is possible if you just work hard enough. I don't personally feel that strongly about the saying (never heard it before this thread, lots of trite inspirations things are said), but since you brought up the whole false/true thing.3
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WorkerDrone83 wrote: »GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »WorkerDrone83 wrote: »GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »WorkerDrone83 wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »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.
Besides the fact that the bolded are not privileges...
Depends on who you ask.
No...
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?
There's a big yawning gulf of a spectrum between being a lazy quitter and being a dedicated hustler.
At some places on that spectrum, things like physical and mental disabilities can impact one's ability and or willingness to hustle. Not having such a physical or mental impairment is privilege.
Respectfully disagree. The absence of disabilities should not be viewed as privilege, unless we're using a really loose definition of privilege where a vast majority of people qualify.
All this talk of privilege is getting old. So people have some advantages that others don't. That's life. A lot of us weren't born with silver spoons in our mouths, but that doesn't hold us back from success or reaching our goals. Seems like more of an excuse than an explanation.
As for the phrase in question, is it really so bad to offer up optimistic hope when people really can do things they think are impossible? Perhaps people really just don't want to see the flip-side of the coin, that if they don't reach their goals it's their own fault.
You just don't like the word privilege. Advantage is a synonym for privilege.priv·i·lege
ˈpriv(ə)lij/Submit
noun
1.
a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group of people.
"education is a right, not a privilege"
synonyms: advantage, benefit; More
Illness is not an excuse, and I'm not making one. How you thought I was when I said I overcame walking with a cane to becoming a runner is beyond me.
However, I have limitations. That's a fact of my illness because it's trashed my joints to a certain point.
Someone with untrashed joints has advantages I don't have, and that's fine, and I don't have issue with that.
All I'm saying that means is that there are things that all the striving and wanting and thirsting and being hungry to do... I'll never be able to do them. There are limits. My limits fall short of where someone who doesn't have my disease's limits are.
Not being diseased is an advantage I don't have in the "nothing is impossible" game.
This is why I think the statement is too pat. Yes, some things are impossible for some people. That doesn't mean that I don't think I shouldn't go to my limits and just give up. I certainly didn't give up when I was walking with a cane. I fought back like hell.
So don't write me off as an excuse maker. I'm just a realist.
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.
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.4 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »WorkerDrone83 wrote: »What I don't agree with is the flagrant use of the term privilege. Are people who can walk supposed to feel like jerks because they have something that not everybody does? Should I feel resentful because I wasn't born with a trust fund?
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.
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)0 -
I tend to take words at their exact meaning which isn't always a good thing. In this case, I could work really hard at running a 2 minute mile but I am 54 years old and I have COPD. So...But I do appreciate the positive attitude behind it.4
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WorkerDrone83 wrote: »GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »WorkerDrone83 wrote: »GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »WorkerDrone83 wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »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.
Besides the fact that the bolded are not privileges...
Depends on who you ask.
No...
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?
There's a big yawning gulf of a spectrum between being a lazy quitter and being a dedicated hustler.
At some places on that spectrum, things like physical and mental disabilities can impact one's ability and or willingness to hustle. Not having such a physical or mental impairment is privilege.
Respectfully disagree. The absence of disabilities should not be viewed as privilege, unless we're using a really loose definition of privilege where a vast majority of people qualify.
All this talk of privilege is getting old. So people have some advantages that others don't. That's life. A lot of us weren't born with silver spoons in our mouths, but that doesn't hold us back from success or reaching our goals. Seems like more of an excuse than an explanation.
As for the phrase in question, is it really so bad to offer up optimistic hope when people really can do things they think are impossible? Perhaps people really just don't want to see the flip-side of the coin, that if they don't reach their goals it's their own fault.
You just don't like the word privilege. Advantage is a synonym for privilege.priv·i·lege
ˈpriv(ə)lij/Submit
noun
1.
a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group of people.
"education is a right, not a privilege"
synonyms: advantage, benefit; More
Illness is not an excuse, and I'm not making one. How you thought I was when I said I overcame walking with a cane to becoming a runner is beyond me.
However, I have limitations. That's a fact of my illness because it's trashed my joints to a certain point.
Someone with untrashed joints has advantages I don't have, and that's fine, and I don't have issue with that.
All I'm saying that means is that there are things that all the striving and wanting and thirsting and being hungry to do... I'll never be able to do them. There are limits. My limits fall short of where someone who doesn't have my disease's limits are.
Not being diseased is an advantage I don't have in the "nothing is impossible" game.
This is why I think the statement is too pat. Yes, some things are impossible for some people. That doesn't mean that I don't think I shouldn't go to my limits and just give up. I certainly didn't give up when I was walking with a cane. I fought back like hell.
So don't write me off as an excuse maker. I'm just a realist.
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.
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.
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.4 -
stanmann571 wrote: »clicketykeys wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »WorkerDrone83 wrote: »GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »WorkerDrone83 wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »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.
Besides the fact that the bolded are not privileges...
Depends on who you ask.
No...
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?
There's a big yawning gulf of a spectrum between being a lazy quitter and being a dedicated hustler.
At some places on that spectrum, things like physical and mental disabilities can impact one's ability and or willingness to hustle. Not having such a physical or mental impairment is privilege.
Respectfully disagree. The absence of disabilities should not be viewed as privilege, unless we're using a really loose definition of privilege where a vast majority of people qualify.
All this talk of privilege is getting old. So people have some advantages that others don't. That's life. A lot of us weren't born with silver spoons in our mouths, but that doesn't hold us back from success or reaching our goals. Seems like more of an excuse than an explanation.
As for the phrase in question, is it really so bad to offer up optimistic hope when people really can do things they think are impossible? Perhaps people really just don't want to see the flip-side of the coin, that if they don't reach their goals it's their own fault.
But it IS a privilege to be able to climb stairs, walk up an inline, walk across uneven ground without falling, kneel on the floor, and climb ladders. The difficulty setting on the video game of life for the majority of people is set much lower than it is for some, and that's all that privilege is: how hard is your life based on the luck of draw when you were born.
My video game level is set up to be very easy in many ways. I'm very solidly middle class, I live in a first world country, I'm white, I'm taller than average, I'm educated and smart. I have a car, a smartphone, a large house, enough food, and don't have to work because my husband earns a lot of money, I have excellent health insurance. I'm young, but that will change with time.
My video game level is set up to be harder than others in a lot of ways too. I'm female, I'm fat (I'm working on that though), I'm unhealthy (some of this can be fixed, my diabetes will go into remission - my mental illness never will), I have moderately severe mental illness that does severely affect my quality of life (such as being able to hold down a job), I am not neurotypical, I have a birth defect in my knee limiting my ability to walk/climb stairs/hills/ladders, I have PTSD.
I will not likely by pulled over by the police for no reason because I'm white, but I am more likely to be sexually assaulted because I'm female. I lack the able-bodied privilege, but I have yet to be in a wheelchair so I have more privilege than some.
Everyone has privileges and disprivileges. Some have more privileges than others though. These privileges open up the opportunities that are given to us in life. It's not an excuse, it's a fact of life.
A friend works in the Dallas school district working with underprivileged children and helping them get to college. Without her intervention and VERY hard work, these children would not be able to jump through the hoops to take advantage of the opportunities that are there. These children are often the first in their family to go to college, and are not privileged enough to know where to start to apply for school. Even community college is out of reach for them, without her influence. Because of her, they are able to do the impossible. She uses HER privilege to give OTHERS privilege. But it's still privilege.
Because I grew up in a middle class family, I was expected, encouraged, and financially able to go to college, and thus able to marry into a middle class family. Because my husband has a good degree and a good job, we are now an upper middle class family. That opportunity would not have been mine had my father been a factory worker instead of a school teacher. I would not have met my husband had I not gone to college and pursued the major I chose, because he went to a different church.
From a practical perspective, she's harming these children and their families. Jumping multiple Maslow levels at once objectively causes harm, and does not bring the desired enduring benefit.
Unless she's working with them starting around the 4th or 6th grade, just attending college will not give them any benefit except to steal time and resources from them that could be better directed in other directions.
It's not her fault, or yours that her privilege doesn't allow her to recognize and address the real needs of this community.
Please explain how being the first in your family to go to college is "jumping multiple Maslow levels." (Note: Yes, I'm familiar with the hierarchy of needs.)
This.
The children that she's helped have gone on to graduate, some from ivy league institutions, with honors and now have very promising careers. These children are not the underachievers in school that she's scooping up from the bottom of the class and forcing into college, these are children that have the grades to get into Harvard with scholarships, but only lack the skills to know how to file a FASFA, apply for student aid, and so forth. They have worked for many years for the ability to go to college, and deserve these chances.
All their Maslow needs are met, they are just poor. She gives them a needed a leg up to reach the stars and their potential. I'm sorry you can't see that.
So she's a guidance counselor.
As I understand things (I may be misinformed, I was homeschooled (unfortunately, I was very unhappy there) so all I know of guidance counselors is what I've gleaned from the media, guidance counselors are typically limited to one school and service students of all socioeconomic statues. She works all over Dallas ISD and only works with the disadvantaged and often minority students.
Dallas has a huge problem with poverty, and her employer is part of a program designed to help lift families out of poverty through advanced schooling. She may be a guidance counselor, I honestly don't know, but only for a subset of children.
I'm conflicted here, mostly because what I'm seeing from my perspective(not homeschooled, inner city, poor) is that instead of identifying a broken part of the system and replacing it(which saves money and adds resources) additional pieces are being added to the system adding cost and complexity.
So I am curious exactly what she does, how she does it, how the target students are identified.
On the other hand, I'm familiar with the general situation, although not the Dallas particulars, and the idea of adding bloat and bureaucracy to an already bloated bureaucratic system aggravates me, especially since Dallas is one of the districts I'm considering as I transition from one career to the next(I'm active military and intend to be a teacher within the next 3-5 years)1 -
WorkerDrone83 wrote: »WorkerDrone83 wrote: »GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »WorkerDrone83 wrote: »GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »WorkerDrone83 wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »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.
Besides the fact that the bolded are not privileges...
Depends on who you ask.
No...
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?
There's a big yawning gulf of a spectrum between being a lazy quitter and being a dedicated hustler.
At some places on that spectrum, things like physical and mental disabilities can impact one's ability and or willingness to hustle. Not having such a physical or mental impairment is privilege.
Respectfully disagree. The absence of disabilities should not be viewed as privilege, unless we're using a really loose definition of privilege where a vast majority of people qualify.
All this talk of privilege is getting old. So people have some advantages that others don't. That's life. A lot of us weren't born with silver spoons in our mouths, but that doesn't hold us back from success or reaching our goals. Seems like more of an excuse than an explanation.
As for the phrase in question, is it really so bad to offer up optimistic hope when people really can do things they think are impossible? Perhaps people really just don't want to see the flip-side of the coin, that if they don't reach their goals it's their own fault.
You just don't like the word privilege. Advantage is a synonym for privilege.priv·i·lege
ˈpriv(ə)lij/Submit
noun
1.
a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group of people.
"education is a right, not a privilege"
synonyms: advantage, benefit; More
Illness is not an excuse, and I'm not making one. How you thought I was when I said I overcame walking with a cane to becoming a runner is beyond me.
However, I have limitations. That's a fact of my illness because it's trashed my joints to a certain point.
Someone with untrashed joints has advantages I don't have, and that's fine, and I don't have issue with that.
All I'm saying that means is that there are things that all the striving and wanting and thirsting and being hungry to do... I'll never be able to do them. There are limits. My limits fall short of where someone who doesn't have my disease's limits are.
Not being diseased is an advantage I don't have in the "nothing is impossible" game.
This is why I think the statement is too pat. Yes, some things are impossible for some people. That doesn't mean that I don't think I shouldn't go to my limits and just give up. I certainly didn't give up when I was walking with a cane. I fought back like hell.
So don't write me off as an excuse maker. I'm just a realist.
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.
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.
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.
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.3 -
WorkerDrone83 wrote: »GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »WorkerDrone83 wrote: »GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »WorkerDrone83 wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »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.
Besides the fact that the bolded are not privileges...
Depends on who you ask.
No...
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?
There's a big yawning gulf of a spectrum between being a lazy quitter and being a dedicated hustler.
At some places on that spectrum, things like physical and mental disabilities can impact one's ability and or willingness to hustle. Not having such a physical or mental impairment is privilege.
Respectfully disagree. The absence of disabilities should not be viewed as privilege, unless we're using a really loose definition of privilege where a vast majority of people qualify.
All this talk of privilege is getting old. So people have some advantages that others don't. That's life. A lot of us weren't born with silver spoons in our mouths, but that doesn't hold us back from success or reaching our goals. Seems like more of an excuse than an explanation.
As for the phrase in question, is it really so bad to offer up optimistic hope when people really can do things they think are impossible? Perhaps people really just don't want to see the flip-side of the coin, that if they don't reach their goals it's their own fault.
You just don't like the word privilege. Advantage is a synonym for privilege.priv·i·lege
ˈpriv(ə)lij/Submit
noun
1.
a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group of people.
"education is a right, not a privilege"
synonyms: advantage, benefit; More
Illness is not an excuse, and I'm not making one. How you thought I was when I said I overcame walking with a cane to becoming a runner is beyond me.
However, I have limitations. That's a fact of my illness because it's trashed my joints to a certain point.
Someone with untrashed joints has advantages I don't have, and that's fine, and I don't have issue with that.
All I'm saying that means is that there are things that all the striving and wanting and thirsting and being hungry to do... I'll never be able to do them. There are limits. My limits fall short of where someone who doesn't have my disease's limits are.
Not being diseased is an advantage I don't have in the "nothing is impossible" game.
This is why I think the statement is too pat. Yes, some things are impossible for some people. That doesn't mean that I don't think I shouldn't go to my limits and just give up. I certainly didn't give up when I was walking with a cane. I fought back like hell.
So don't write me off as an excuse maker. I'm just a realist.
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.
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: »lemurcat12 wrote: »WorkerDrone83 wrote: »What I don't agree with is the flagrant use of the term privilege. Are people who can walk supposed to feel like jerks because they have something that not everybody does? Should I feel resentful because I wasn't born with a trust fund?
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.
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 -
WorkerDrone83 wrote: »WorkerDrone83 wrote: »GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »WorkerDrone83 wrote: »GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »WorkerDrone83 wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »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.
Besides the fact that the bolded are not privileges...
Depends on who you ask.
No...
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?
There's a big yawning gulf of a spectrum between being a lazy quitter and being a dedicated hustler.
At some places on that spectrum, things like physical and mental disabilities can impact one's ability and or willingness to hustle. Not having such a physical or mental impairment is privilege.
Respectfully disagree. The absence of disabilities should not be viewed as privilege, unless we're using a really loose definition of privilege where a vast majority of people qualify.
All this talk of privilege is getting old. So people have some advantages that others don't. That's life. A lot of us weren't born with silver spoons in our mouths, but that doesn't hold us back from success or reaching our goals. Seems like more of an excuse than an explanation.
As for the phrase in question, is it really so bad to offer up optimistic hope when people really can do things they think are impossible? Perhaps people really just don't want to see the flip-side of the coin, that if they don't reach their goals it's their own fault.
You just don't like the word privilege. Advantage is a synonym for privilege.priv·i·lege
ˈpriv(ə)lij/Submit
noun
1.
a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group of people.
"education is a right, not a privilege"
synonyms: advantage, benefit; More
Illness is not an excuse, and I'm not making one. How you thought I was when I said I overcame walking with a cane to becoming a runner is beyond me.
However, I have limitations. That's a fact of my illness because it's trashed my joints to a certain point.
Someone with untrashed joints has advantages I don't have, and that's fine, and I don't have issue with that.
All I'm saying that means is that there are things that all the striving and wanting and thirsting and being hungry to do... I'll never be able to do them. There are limits. My limits fall short of where someone who doesn't have my disease's limits are.
Not being diseased is an advantage I don't have in the "nothing is impossible" game.
This is why I think the statement is too pat. Yes, some things are impossible for some people. That doesn't mean that I don't think I shouldn't go to my limits and just give up. I certainly didn't give up when I was walking with a cane. I fought back like hell.
So don't write me off as an excuse maker. I'm just a realist.
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.
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.
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.
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.
0 -
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: »WorkerDrone83 wrote: »WorkerDrone83 wrote: »GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »WorkerDrone83 wrote: »GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »WorkerDrone83 wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »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.
Besides the fact that the bolded are not privileges...
Depends on who you ask.
No...
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?
There's a big yawning gulf of a spectrum between being a lazy quitter and being a dedicated hustler.
At some places on that spectrum, things like physical and mental disabilities can impact one's ability and or willingness to hustle. Not having such a physical or mental impairment is privilege.
Respectfully disagree. The absence of disabilities should not be viewed as privilege, unless we're using a really loose definition of privilege where a vast majority of people qualify.
All this talk of privilege is getting old. So people have some advantages that others don't. That's life. A lot of us weren't born with silver spoons in our mouths, but that doesn't hold us back from success or reaching our goals. Seems like more of an excuse than an explanation.
As for the phrase in question, is it really so bad to offer up optimistic hope when people really can do things they think are impossible? Perhaps people really just don't want to see the flip-side of the coin, that if they don't reach their goals it's their own fault.
You just don't like the word privilege. Advantage is a synonym for privilege.priv·i·lege
ˈpriv(ə)lij/Submit
noun
1.
a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group of people.
"education is a right, not a privilege"
synonyms: advantage, benefit; More
Illness is not an excuse, and I'm not making one. How you thought I was when I said I overcame walking with a cane to becoming a runner is beyond me.
However, I have limitations. That's a fact of my illness because it's trashed my joints to a certain point.
Someone with untrashed joints has advantages I don't have, and that's fine, and I don't have issue with that.
All I'm saying that means is that there are things that all the striving and wanting and thirsting and being hungry to do... I'll never be able to do them. There are limits. My limits fall short of where someone who doesn't have my disease's limits are.
Not being diseased is an advantage I don't have in the "nothing is impossible" game.
This is why I think the statement is too pat. Yes, some things are impossible for some people. That doesn't mean that I don't think I shouldn't go to my limits and just give up. I certainly didn't give up when I was walking with a cane. I fought back like hell.
So don't write me off as an excuse maker. I'm just a realist.
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.
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.
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.
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 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 -
WorkerDrone83 wrote: »WorkerDrone83 wrote: »WorkerDrone83 wrote: »GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »WorkerDrone83 wrote: »GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »WorkerDrone83 wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »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.
Besides the fact that the bolded are not privileges...
Depends on who you ask.
No...
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?
There's a big yawning gulf of a spectrum between being a lazy quitter and being a dedicated hustler.
At some places on that spectrum, things like physical and mental disabilities can impact one's ability and or willingness to hustle. Not having such a physical or mental impairment is privilege.
Respectfully disagree. The absence of disabilities should not be viewed as privilege, unless we're using a really loose definition of privilege where a vast majority of people qualify.
All this talk of privilege is getting old. So people have some advantages that others don't. That's life. A lot of us weren't born with silver spoons in our mouths, but that doesn't hold us back from success or reaching our goals. Seems like more of an excuse than an explanation.
As for the phrase in question, is it really so bad to offer up optimistic hope when people really can do things they think are impossible? Perhaps people really just don't want to see the flip-side of the coin, that if they don't reach their goals it's their own fault.
You just don't like the word privilege. Advantage is a synonym for privilege.priv·i·lege
ˈpriv(ə)lij/Submit
noun
1.
a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group of people.
"education is a right, not a privilege"
synonyms: advantage, benefit; More
Illness is not an excuse, and I'm not making one. How you thought I was when I said I overcame walking with a cane to becoming a runner is beyond me.
However, I have limitations. That's a fact of my illness because it's trashed my joints to a certain point.
Someone with untrashed joints has advantages I don't have, and that's fine, and I don't have issue with that.
All I'm saying that means is that there are things that all the striving and wanting and thirsting and being hungry to do... I'll never be able to do them. There are limits. My limits fall short of where someone who doesn't have my disease's limits are.
Not being diseased is an advantage I don't have in the "nothing is impossible" game.
This is why I think the statement is too pat. Yes, some things are impossible for some people. That doesn't mean that I don't think I shouldn't go to my limits and just give up. I certainly didn't give up when I was walking with a cane. I fought back like hell.
So don't write me off as an excuse maker. I'm just a realist.
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.
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.
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.
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 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:
Haha. Deal 1 -
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 -
WorkerDrone83 wrote: »WorkerDrone83 wrote: »GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »WorkerDrone83 wrote: »GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »WorkerDrone83 wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »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.
Besides the fact that the bolded are not privileges...
Depends on who you ask.
No...
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?
There's a big yawning gulf of a spectrum between being a lazy quitter and being a dedicated hustler.
At some places on that spectrum, things like physical and mental disabilities can impact one's ability and or willingness to hustle. Not having such a physical or mental impairment is privilege.
Respectfully disagree. The absence of disabilities should not be viewed as privilege, unless we're using a really loose definition of privilege where a vast majority of people qualify.
All this talk of privilege is getting old. So people have some advantages that others don't. That's life. A lot of us weren't born with silver spoons in our mouths, but that doesn't hold us back from success or reaching our goals. Seems like more of an excuse than an explanation.
As for the phrase in question, is it really so bad to offer up optimistic hope when people really can do things they think are impossible? Perhaps people really just don't want to see the flip-side of the coin, that if they don't reach their goals it's their own fault.
You just don't like the word privilege. Advantage is a synonym for privilege.priv·i·lege
ˈpriv(ə)lij/Submit
noun
1.
a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group of people.
"education is a right, not a privilege"
synonyms: advantage, benefit; More
Illness is not an excuse, and I'm not making one. How you thought I was when I said I overcame walking with a cane to becoming a runner is beyond me.
However, I have limitations. That's a fact of my illness because it's trashed my joints to a certain point.
Someone with untrashed joints has advantages I don't have, and that's fine, and I don't have issue with that.
All I'm saying that means is that there are things that all the striving and wanting and thirsting and being hungry to do... I'll never be able to do them. There are limits. My limits fall short of where someone who doesn't have my disease's limits are.
Not being diseased is an advantage I don't have in the "nothing is impossible" game.
This is why I think the statement is too pat. Yes, some things are impossible for some people. That doesn't mean that I don't think I shouldn't go to my limits and just give up. I certainly didn't give up when I was walking with a cane. I fought back like hell.
So don't write me off as an excuse maker. I'm just a realist.
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.
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.
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.
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
-
lemurcat12 wrote: »WorkerDrone83 wrote: »WorkerDrone83 wrote: »GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »WorkerDrone83 wrote: »GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »WorkerDrone83 wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »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.
Besides the fact that the bolded are not privileges...
Depends on who you ask.
No...
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?
There's a big yawning gulf of a spectrum between being a lazy quitter and being a dedicated hustler.
At some places on that spectrum, things like physical and mental disabilities can impact one's ability and or willingness to hustle. Not having such a physical or mental impairment is privilege.
Respectfully disagree. The absence of disabilities should not be viewed as privilege, unless we're using a really loose definition of privilege where a vast majority of people qualify.
All this talk of privilege is getting old. So people have some advantages that others don't. That's life. A lot of us weren't born with silver spoons in our mouths, but that doesn't hold us back from success or reaching our goals. Seems like more of an excuse than an explanation.
As for the phrase in question, is it really so bad to offer up optimistic hope when people really can do things they think are impossible? Perhaps people really just don't want to see the flip-side of the coin, that if they don't reach their goals it's their own fault.
You just don't like the word privilege. Advantage is a synonym for privilege.priv·i·lege
ˈpriv(ə)lij/Submit
noun
1.
a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group of people.
"education is a right, not a privilege"
synonyms: advantage, benefit; More
Illness is not an excuse, and I'm not making one. How you thought I was when I said I overcame walking with a cane to becoming a runner is beyond me.
However, I have limitations. That's a fact of my illness because it's trashed my joints to a certain point.
Someone with untrashed joints has advantages I don't have, and that's fine, and I don't have issue with that.
All I'm saying that means is that there are things that all the striving and wanting and thirsting and being hungry to do... I'll never be able to do them. There are limits. My limits fall short of where someone who doesn't have my disease's limits are.
Not being diseased is an advantage I don't have in the "nothing is impossible" game.
This is why I think the statement is too pat. Yes, some things are impossible for some people. That doesn't mean that I don't think I shouldn't go to my limits and just give up. I certainly didn't give up when I was walking with a cane. I fought back like hell.
So don't write me off as an excuse maker. I'm just a realist.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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