Monday, January 5, 2009

Everything is Possible!

“You can’t do it!”  “I don’t know if I could get this done.”  “I’m not smart/strong/cool enough to do that!”  Sound familiar?  Every day we live our lives in doubt of what we are capable of.  We are always negative of ourselves and the world around us.  This creates a mentality that believes that we are not “good enough” to accomplish our goals or anything that we set out to do in life.  It also creates an environment around us that motivates us to stay in that mentality and never get away from it.  I have wasted many years of my life in this mindset.  I didn’t really play sports because I thought I wasn’t good enough.  I never had a true career path because I thought that I was not particularly good at one thing or the other.  My friends always said they wanted to be a cop or they wanted to be a pro athlete but I could never say, “I want to be a (this profession or that profession) when I grow up,” because I didn’t believe it.  I now believe that anything in this world is possible and you can achieve whatever you set your mind to. 

A good compare and contrast between the “not good enough” mentality and the “everything is possible” mentality is the conversation I had about the famous event that occurred on November 4, 2008.  At around 7:45 p.m., I was sitting down watching CNN’s coverage of the elections and my mother happened to walk by.  She told me “Why are you watching this?  Obama is not going to win.  The other guy is going to win and this place will get worse.”  The only reply that I had was, “Don’t be so negative.  Just watch and see.”  She left and the next morning I told her, “You see, you can’t always be driven by what has happened in the past.  Once you know that anything is possible you will see the difference around you.”  This conversation could have been about anything, sports, the health of a relative, etc., and the outcome would have been the same.  If you believe there is such a thing as failure, death, etc. then that is what will be shown to you.  Luckily, I sparked a seed of awareness in my mother’s head and made her realize that erasing negative thoughts brings happiness into your life.

You can shift away from the “not good enough” mentality and move closer to the “everything is possible” mentality.  It might not happen overnight but once you truly believe it, you will see the change in your life.  I believe that many of us have been thrown into the “not good enough” mental state by our society and the way that we were brought up.  Generations of individuals have been raised to be negative and not believe that they are capable of achieving their goals.  I know you are probably thinking: “I hear about those people all of the time, they are so horrible.  They tell their kids things like ‘You are good for nothing’ or they physically, emotionally, and mentally abuse their children.  I don’t know why they have children in the first place.”  Those are the extreme cases, but there are other situations and you probably have been through one of them in your lifetime and don’t even know about it.  How many times were you told by a parent that you couldn’t do this/that because it was too dangerous (Not going out late at for drinks and a drive around time, but small things like going on a roller coaster or indoor rock climbing)?  When you were a baby, did your parents have you in the “sheltered” play pen all day so you wouldn’t get hurt?  Don’t look only at the extreme situations where this mentality is formed; look also at the subtle situations that might creep into your mind and make you question your potential. 

One person in this “physical” world has helped me see that there is no limit to what you can achieve in this world.  I look at her as a symbol of the limitless potential that is inside each and every individual in this world.  I have seen the truth to this limitless potential through her actions and her “everything is possible” mentality.  She has proved to me that the “not good enough” mentality that haunts each and every one of us (some more than others) can be erased and we can all wake up to realize our true potential and the fact that we are all capable of achieving anything that we set out to achieve.  This person is my daughter.  Now I know what many of you are thinking: “Joel you seriously have issues.  Your daughter is not even two years old.  How could she possibly possess the “everything is possible” mentality?”  She possesses that mentality because she has not been manipulated by feelings, negativity, or people who try to enforce the “not good enough” mentality.  She is, as the phrase states, “Free as a bird.”  She knows no limits or boundaries and only knows how to enjoy life one second at a time.  That is the mentality that we all have deep down inside it.  Once you find the key, you can open the doors to the “everything is possible” mentality and never have to look back.  I hope this writing has helped you become more aware of the potential that you have inside you and also raise your desire to unleash that potential.  Remember to leave your comments and insight to the topic because WE motivate each other.  Live life to its fullest, one day at a time!

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