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What Is Your Relationship with Impossible?

Opportunity or Fear?

By Remarkable PeoplePublished 5 years ago 3 min read
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Every day we are faced with opportunities and challenges. Sometimes these chances are disguised as challenges, or challenges are masquerading as opportunities, and most of the time they are both, depending on your view of the world.

On my best days, I am faced with at least one idea, task, or person that seems impossible. I relish the exhilaration of being presented with a question that I have no answer to and no reference of where to begin. In the unfamiliar, there is space for the yet to be imagined. I am the best version of me in ambiguity and uncertainty. I am energized by the opportunity to take on the impossible—small and outrageous alike. My relationship is positive, but I recognize that some people in my life are paralyzed by the impossible.

Fear overwhelms them, and they shut down their senses and resort to what has always been yesterday's modus operandi. They fear to fail, fear embarrassment, fear ridicule, and therefore, avoid action that is outside a narrow prescription. Often, what appears to be impossible is really just a circumstance or situation outside the approaches that we used yesterday. Usually, what we have always done is the easiest and most mediocre thing that we can attempt, but there is safety in a recognized pattern. The longer your relationship with the impossible is uncomfortable, the more uncomfortable it becomes. Shifting the paradigm doesn't happen in one fell swoop. (Does anyone speak that way?) It takes a modicum of courage and a dose of commitment.

As with most changes, we don't connect the dots with a straight line or in a giant step. Meandering between the comfort of the known and the anxiousness of the uncertain is a great way to start. Go for a stroll down an intellectual or emotional pathway that gives you a slightly uncomfortable feeling. Find one small challenge, take the first step to overcome it in a way that you have never considered before, and then immediately take a second step. Momentum rises up and propels us after the third or fourth step. Surprise and delight at completing the challenge, and defeating the gravity and inertia of the impossible, become addictive. Success begets success. There will be days when a sidestep or backtrack might be necessary; remember the goal is to change your relationship with the unusual, inconceivable, and unreasonable. Along the way, a switch flips in our heads, our hearts, and our confidence. The destination is still the same, but the journey is way more exciting and fulfilling.

The yet to be imagined begins to be imaginable. "I could nots" become "maybe I can." "I would nots" start to look like "why wouldn't I try?" When we access the possibility space, we are going where very few dare to go. The dreamers from history like DaVinci, Michelangelo, Einstein, and Magellan stepped through the curtain every time they proposed another preposterous project. They were ridiculed, chastised, shunned, and celebrated in their lifetimes and beyond. Those pioneers and mavericks who dared to cross North America when there weren't paths or roads gave us the courage and the imagination to expand both Canada and the United States. We won't all be explorers or inventors, artists or leaders, but we are all better when one of us widens our possibility space.

  1. Ask someone you care about: "What is the most important thing I can do for you?"
  2. Do it or do the first step towards getting it done.
  3. Pledge to do more tomorrow.
  4. Do more tomorrow.
  5. Celebrate.
  6. Rinse and Repeat.

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About the Creator

Remarkable People

Writing about observations, ideas, challenges, and people that I find remarkable.

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