In the past, many of my jobs have involved meetings. Often these meetings would have ill-defined invite lists which would result in people being invited, such as myself, who really didn't need to be there. Before becoming empowered enough to just excuse myself from such gatherings either before they happened or once I realized I didn't need to be there, I used to have a way to pass the time. While the convocation droned on, I would find an object on the table, generally a soda can or a coffee cup, and I would focus all of my mental energy into trying to make it move. As a child who grew up addicted to the Star Wars movies, it shouldn't have been too much of a surprise that I would want to have "the Force", but in reality my thought process was a little different.
For all intents and purposes, moving objects with your mind is something that is generally considered to be impossible. My motivation was to prove that this impossible act was possible and in doing so invalidate the whole concept. Once the impossible is possible, all bets are off. If I had ever moved a can with my mind, it would have changed my whole world view.
While this is a fanciful example, I have recently encountered another one that reminded me of this whole idea. A month ago, if you had offered me a million dollars to run ten miles, it is quite likely that I would have scoffed at my ability to do so. It would have been impossible to me!
However, an interesting thing happened a couple weeks ago. Kate and I have done a couple of 5Ks this year and I was eager to see if I could run a 10K. A normal person would have identified a course and tried to run it. Me, I decided to just go out and run until I felt like I had run far enough. My first attempt at doing this came up a bit short; I went 5 miles when I needed to go 6.2. For my second try, I didn't want to take any chances so I kept adding new loops and blocks on to my path. When I got home and checked my route, I was shocked with the answer - I had run 9.38 miles!
Suddenly ten miles didn't seem like such a feat and it became my new goal. Within a week, I found myself going for it - This time with a mapped out course (I finally learned my lesson). After about an hour and a half of running, what was previously "impossible" in my mind is now quite possible.
Why am I sharing all of this? When we label things as impossible, it's like flipping a switch in our brains that tells us not to even consider it. If we take the time to actually assess this, we may find that we are confusing the "impossible" with the "difficult". Imagine how much richer our lives can be if we were to take on some more of these "impossible" tasks and accomplish them. This is especially important if we think locally. For example, we could say that making sure that everyone has enough food to eat seems impossible,
