In my forays into the internet and even the dreaded, horrifying, real life, I sometimes stumble across posts and pictures and things people have scrawled on various mediums saying something along the lines of, “You can do it!” Or, “Never give up!”
These are worthwhile encouragements and certainly better than the opposite. But I then I hear the question in my head, Can I? Can you?
Our goals and aspirations can seem difficult or even impossible. To use myself as an example, my dream career of being a full-time writer sometimes feels like just that, a dream.
When we’re faced with impossible tasks or odds, what do we sometimes do? Give up. Before we even try. If it’s impossible then why even bother?
But if we look back to our great teacher, History, we’ll see time and time again of people doing the impossible.
Beethoven famously wrote amazing pieces while being mostly, and eventually, completely, deaf. Jonas Salk invented a vaccine for Polio. Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay were the first to reach the peak of Mount Everest.
As we can see, the impossible is not always impossible. So why do we struggle with our motivation to do things that we know we are capable of?
It may be very simple, it is easier to take the easy way. But you and I both know that’s not what we want for ourselves nor is it the noble path in life.
We often say, “I want to,” or, “It would be nice if…”
What if we started to tell ourselves that we had to? To use myself as an example again, I could say: I have to write and therefore pursue my dream of being a full-time writer.
Perhaps that’s how Sir Hillary and Norgay felt, they had to reach the peak of Mount Everest. Not that they just wanted to.
Want implies you can do without. A need is something you have to do or have to have.
C.S. Lewis once said in a talk he gave to BBC, “It is wonderful what you can do when you have to.”
Can you do it?
You have to.