“The great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.” Walter Bagehot
I love this quote. I love doing what people say I cannot do. I’ve been doing it a long time. In fact, I have a little physical emoji of a can that says “I can!” I suspect this thing was made to be one of those pins you stick on your lapel but since I wear very little jewelry and no accessories, this little can is now stuck in the wall in my bathroom where I can see it regularly.
I was thinking about this quote today and realized that it isn’t just people who tell us what we can and can not do, It is also ourselves. We all have those little inner voices that chatter away in the background, telling us “you can’t do that!”
But that isn’t true. We can. It sometimes takes a bit of work. It sometimes takes a change in what we believe to be true about ourselves. For example, do you believe that after you reach a certain age you can’t do certain things? Why do you believe that? Is it because someone told you? It is because the adults in your life modeled it for you? I was lucky, I had a dad who water skied and played professional trumpet till he was in his 80s. Then he retired and hit the road in a motorhome. He modeled for me that we do not have to believe what others, or ourselves, tell us about our age.
We are only as old as we make up our minds to be.
This is just one example of examining our thoughts and beliefs to discover what we believe about a thing, and then asking if it is really true. Or did we just assume it to be true?
Here’s the truth: you can be and do anything you wish. Period. Don’t let the naysayers, whether they are in your own mind or in the minds of others, tell you what you can and cannot do.
You can be and do anything you wish.