Dive! Dive!
Let’s go a little deeper now. Be respectful of who you are and be grateful for what you have.
When you show yourself respect, you send the message deep within that you’re a valued person worthy of bigger and better things. This isn’t a lie, even if you don’t believe it. Disrespecting yourself sends the message deep within that you don’t deserve anything better. This is a lie. You do deserve better. Start respecting yourself by keeping your person and your home clean, smiling at yourself in the mirror, and looking up at the sun or stars every time you catch yourself looking down at the ground. No happy and successful person has ever said, “I got to where I am today by treating myself like shit.”
If you’re not grateful for what you have, no matter how little, anything you have or achieve will never be good enough. Ungrateful thinking will always keep you down. Start being grateful by acknowledging the fact that you’re a curious and determined enough person to be reading an article about making your life better.
Count each and every one of your belongings. Few people do this, and it seems to help those who do it. I don’t know how many things I have, but I do know how much it all weighs. For some reason, just knowing this freed me up enough to focus on other things.
Situational Limits
Situational limits are a bit more of a challenge. Fortunately, one of those is just another one of life’s lies: Getting into college is difficult and expensive.
This is not true. College is only expensive if you’re paying the bill. There are a lot of ways to get your college paid for, and grants are only the tip of the iceberg. Even if you have to take a university’s high school equivalency course and placement tests first, you’re still there - a student, in college, on the campus. Not so difficult. Once you’ve done this, go buy a school shirt with the few extra bucks you have left over from one of those obscure scholarships you found and wear it proudly.
Once Upon A Time
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - peter
hurray for common sense. i was a rehab counselor for 35 years and got so sick of hearing teacher and therapist telling people "you can be/do anything".
i try not to be negative but there is world of reality out there that kids come crashing into and i;,m not one to burst bubbles but sooner or latte
u gots to wake up and smell the coffee. i think its better to narrow things down a bit. if you wanna try something ok i'll support you for the first shot, but if you find that the facts r smashing you in the moof, then regroup and find plan b or even c.
2 - Feral
I disagree completely, I believe that if somebody wants to a achieve a goal they can do, as long as they work and are dedicated. They mgiht have a harder time reaching their goal than a person who is naturally gifted at something, but I definitely think they can still do it. A human being has almost limitless potential, all they have to do is find the key to unlock it.
3 - alexandria jackson
I agree with Feral that we have almost limitless potential. However, recognizing real limitations (i.e. like a physical barrier) is very important, too. Accepting who you are and of what you are capable as her mother did (switching hand dominance) is ultimately freeing. Sure, keep fighting for what you want/need/dream of but the peace that is generated by self-acceptance is priceless.
BEAUTIFUL ARTICLE!
4 - Kristen McDonald
I think I am somewhere in the middle on this. I believe that the majority of the time, our dreams do not exceed our limitaions. Even as a child, before I knew my physical limitations, I never wanted to play basketball for the WMBA. I'm only 5'2" by the way. I think our interests reflect our talents. But this only works for ordianry circumstances.
5 - young rapha
you suck
6 - Akila
this is ridiculous. of course you can be anything you want to be. you CAN. because if you WANT it, you will do anything you can in your might to get it. the people who simply fail in doing this are the people who say they want to do something but don't follow through with it.
IMAGINE A YOUNG CHILD, wanted to become a scientist. of course he can if he wants to. he just needs to study, get his grade in college and uni, then go to medical school. YOU CAN DO IT. if they can't it's because they didn't work hard enough, but it IS in their will power to do it, because ANYONE can be or do ANYTHING if they set their mind to do it.
if you want to do something you will not sleep because you want it so bad, and the people who do not succeed - as I have said before are the people who didn't try hard enough or didn't want it all that much.
you CAN be anything you want to be, if you dedicate yourself.
7 - steven fuceotla
Who ever said that.
i mean if you really want it and are willing to do anything that requires and you have sheer determiniation yes you can defienlyt become anyting you want to be .
8 - Carrie
In addition to physical limitations, not everyone is smart enough to do every job. People act like you're endorsing the Brave New World if you acknowledge that organic IQ plays a role in what you're capable of doing, but the fact remains that it just does. A person of below average intelligence is not going to be an astronaut or a neurosurgeon just because they try hard enough
9 - Jalen
ANYTHING is possible if you dedicate your time and effort into it. Regardless of any intelligence or obstacles of that matter, can stop a determined attitude. being handicapped or short of health in some cases, there is still a way thiers always a way i would die by that statement, close it fold it tens times over and multiply that by 20 i swear u can do anything you put you mind to. Reality is overrated since you people who dont believe anything is possible, obiviously somwhere along the line made bad decisions that cost you your dream, don't put down the ones who believe and even after failer still try.
10 - ImpossableIsNothing
The skeptic lives in a world of truth that cannot be disproved as he created his own reality
11 - Lucas
I don't know if this should even be on the internet because it is entirely false. You can be anything that you want to be. If a baseball player decides he suddenly doesn't want to pursue baseball as his occupation any longer, and wants to become a surgeon instead, with the right education and the absolute will and maybey even encouragement from others, that man will achieve his goals no matter what stands in his way. You can't be anything you want to be...bullshit. Don't let this article fool you.
12 - Diana Hartman
Yes Lucas, that worked out very well for your baseball player turned surgeon. Do you actually know someone like this?
It's no coincidence that those who criticize the article don't hold themselves up as examples of their own assertion.
13 - Dr Dreadful
My wife works as a therapist on a rehab unit. Her patients, many of whom are recovering from strokes and traumatic brain injuries, are often wildly deluded about what they can do now, never mind further down the road. She helps them and sees them make tremendous progress but she'll be the first to stand up and say that No, you cannot be whatever you want to be.
Let's suppose that the reason Lucas's baseball player quits his ball-playing career is that he gets hit on the back of the head by a particularly wild bat swing and suffers an injury to his cerebellum, which among other things controls fine motor skills.
Can he recover enough to lead a full and productive life? Sure. Can he ever be a surgeon with that sort of injury? Hell no.
14 - Unknown
This ludicrous fallacy stems from our futile tendencies to believe something based on mere psychological instinct, as it appears to provide personal benefits. The fundamental issue is that the maxim is the result of misguiding universal emotions which are completely the result of our neurological structures, and incontrovertibly, do not reflect reality. It originates from the alternate common false idea of connecting feelings with truth.
15 - the reallity is what you make it to be
Anything goes! I would say that if you try hard and truly do your best alonside a good plan of how to do it which is the most important thing,you will do it.And not just becouse I say so but there are plenty of examples that can tell you the same think.I'll just use one. Einstein had a very low IQ and still he is considered one of the smart people in history. He was determined and had a plan. If you start cutting a tree with a knife you will not get very far,but if you buy an axe and use it you will achieve your goal. So just doing your best is not enough. Good planing & determination will get you there.
16 - Tsubasa
I disagree. Life can be hard and we may be more gifted in certain areas, but if we have a real drive to do something IT WILL be possible. I was born with Asperger's Syndrome, so my motor functions were shit. I did martial arts for eight years, and now my reflexes are far above average. I beat a guy three times my size in under a minute, even with a 5'8" 135 pound body. I was the most masculine guy in my group of friends, but despite that I became a crossdresser, and a really good one at that. I've won a beauty contest as a girl against 'natural' girls, and despite that I'm straight. Maybe that sounds like bragging, but for my entire life I was told that I could never, ever do either of those things, and I excel at them! I wanted to do those things, despite my handicaps or whatever you want to call them, and not only do I do them, but I do them well...
And you can take a page from THAT!
17 - roman
''Olympic swimmers will not become heavyweight boxing champions, and professional basketball players will not exchange positions with professional horse jockeys â€" no matter how much they want to.''
If they really wanted to, they would. If they don't, they never wanted enough! Period.
This article, to me, is just plain dumb bunch of nonsense that I hear everyday from losers that never do anything about their life. I've seen miracles in people's lives, I've seen people live the kind of life would make you go wow. And they all paid the prize that needs to be paid in order to live that life. Most importantly, they never listened to anyone tell them that they cannot do something.
18 - maire
To everyone who has posted saying 'oh you can be whatever you want to be you just have to believe in it and work hard' - i want to be the president of the united states. but i live in australia and i'm an australian citizen. is it POSSIBLE for me to become the president? No, there are many many legal reasons why this is impossible. But it's my dream!! Are you telling me that if i work hard enough and believe enough in my dream that it will come true? You are all seriously delusional if you believe this. There ARE limits, and it is kinder to help people focus on their strengths rather than expending time, energy and money on futile pursuits that will inevitably end in disappointment.
19 - Andre
Legal barriers are illusory. Ghengis Khan didn't ask anyone if it was "legal" to conquer China, because it wasn't. Laws are not real things. Yes, you can be president of the USA as an australian. There are actually many different ways to accomplish this. Physical barriers are harder to dismiss. The main barrier most people face is the shortness of life (mortality). They don't have an unlimited amount of time to accomplish their goals.
20 - Mark
When an Olympic swimmer comes in second place, does that mean the swimmer did not want the gold as much as the first place swimmer? Did the second place swimmer not train just as hard?
I am so glad I live in reality. Humans, like all animals, have limitations. I'm sorry if that isn't Disney enough for you fairytale types out there, but reality is not a movie.
21 - wisdom
^^The main barrier most people face is the shortness of life (mortality).They don't have an unlimited amount of time to accomplish their goals.
You either succeed, die trying, or don't want it bad enough. This works for any argument that you can't have what you want. It can be an unhealthy way of thinking taken to the extremes but most people use this way of thinking to achieve great things. If you don't think this way I feel bad for you because you could have achieved more.
22 - Lou La
I agree with most things you said in the post, but it is a lot more complex and mysterious than what we can understand. God and Nature works in mysterious ways. What can be accomplished or not is too much for us to predict and judge.
Many people know about Oprah's childhood. Not a pleasant one. Obviously she could think "all the facts" are stacked against her and remain in poverty or become something worse. But she never accepted her "fate" but changed it. Isn't all rags to riches story similar?
There are many people like Oprah who came up from ground zero (Marilyn Monroe, etc) That proves there is almost unlimited power in what the human mind can accomplish if it believes it can.
So don't rely on fate or luck, rely on your own given powers.
23 - Michael
Yes, there are people who have come from humble circumstances to accomplish huge things, such as Genghis Khan, Marilyn Monroe, Oprah. However, those people had a natural aptitude for the things they excelled at. Take a child with an IQ of 80, who wants to be a brain surgeon. No matter how hard he studies, and how bad he wants it, he is not going to be in the top 10% of his graduating class, which is what a medical school would require. Let's be realistic. There are only 24 hours in a day. If every kid gets 8 hours of sleep, goes to school for 7 hours, eats dinner, goes to the bathroom, etc, there is only a limited amount of time that someone with a low IQ can try to gain ground on the other students who have an IQ of 130 and who are also trying hard to get good grades.
However, maybe this child with an IQ of 80 happens to be very gifted in music. Then, if he tries hard to become the next Mozart, maybe he will. BUT, that does not mean he can become ANYTHING he wants.
24 - Rayzakk
You can be anything you want to be is a big lie. You can't be a giraffe.
25 - kenneth
yes, you can!!! i'm a good example. if you say you wanna be a giraffe, that just shows how stupid you are. of course you can't be a giraffe physically but you can be a giraffe mentally.