I’ve never been good at accepting what I see as artificial limits that some people try to impose on others. This includes not seeing eye-to-eye with anyone who says that the world has always been like this and will always be, so there’s no point in trying to change anything. They’re right in a way, since taking that attitude inclines one to refrain from trying to make a positive difference, thereby making their statement a self-fulfilling prophecy. I used to argue a lot with those people but, eventually, I realized that doing so is a tremendous waste of time and prevents me from focusing on things that I can do to make the world a little bit better.
More often than not, when someone says “That’s impossible”, they’re really saying “I can’t think of a way that could be done”. They’re doing themselves a great disservice by limiting their thinking like that. The Magic of Thinking Big includes a passage that wonderfully illustrates the degree to which our mindsets affect the way we view the world. In short, thinking that a given task is impossible prevents us from seeing any way to accomplish it; thinking that that same task is possible causes us to think of several potential solutions. If someone has spent most of their life in a defeatist mindset, it may take a great deal of time for them to start seeing a myriad of possible solutions for any given problem. Likewise, if they’ve spent a lot of time seeing the world in terms of possibilities instead of obstacles, then potential solutions can come to them almost immediately and with little to no conscious effort on their part.
I’d rather start by putting every idea I can think of on the table and then trying them out than limiting myself by immediately throwing out “unrealistic” ideas. Sometimes the best ideas turn out to be the ones that initially seemed crazy or counterintuitive. In other cases, I might never end up needing an idea way down on the list because an earlier idea worked just fine, or I might find out from experience that that idea fails and look for another possible solution. To me, the more options in any given situation, the better the chances of finding a terrific solution.
At this point, I pay little to no heed to those who say that we can’t possibly overcome a particular problem. Instead, I look at the people who are already well on their way toward solving that problem, especially if they explain how they’re doing it. I’ve always been drawn to these kinds of people and the way they ignored those with defeatist mindsets, dreamed of a better world, and then did everything they could to bring it about. They didn’t always succeed in exactly the ways they had envisioned, but they always accomplished much more than those who never bothered to try. What if we took a page from their example? What if we set our minds to the idea that that we can change things and then went to work to make it happen? What would the world look like if we did that? I want to find out. Do you?