What are Your True Limits?
Posted: Thursday, October 28, 2010
by Donovan Baldwin
No Diet 4 Me
There's an old joke about a researcher who taught a frog to jump on command. He then measured how far the frog could jump and then began cutting off the frog's legs one by one. With each leg lost, the frog jumped a shorter distance. Finally, when all the frog's legs had been cut off, the researcher told the frog to jump, and, of course, the frog did nothing.
I didn't say it was a "good" joke, just an old joke, and I was a kid on the playground when I learned it.
On May 6, 1954, a runner named Roger Bannister ran a mile in under four minutes.
It was the first time a mile had been run in an official time of under four minutes.
Up until that time, many experts, including some runners, thought it impossible for a human to run a mile in less than four minutes. Only forty-six days after Roger Bannister's shattering of the record, a man named John Landy did it as well. In the year after that day in May, several other runners ran a mile in under four minutes.
Running a mile in less than four minutes is relatively commonplace today.
Once Roger Bannister showed that the "impossible" was possible after all, many others found that it was possible for them as well.
The frog in the "joke" had some real limitations. Roger Bannister faced some perceived limitations. However, Bannister decided that the was going to do what had never been done...and did it.
Many of us have found ourselves in similar situations in our lives. Many of us have assumed that we would not be able to do something because...well...we had never done it before! Maybe we even knew people who had done it. Still, we assumed that we could not do it for no good reason other than we had not done it before.
There's an old saying, "You don't know until you try."
You won't know your true limitations either.
In fact, even "failure" this time does not always prove that something is impossible. Sometimes it just means you are not quite ready. Maybe you need to "train" some more. Maybe you need a little more motivation.
Maybe you just need to try again.
Roger Bannister did not run a mile in under four minutes the first time he tried. Thomas Alva Edison did not make a workable light bulb until after several failures. Colonel Sanders was in his 60's when, after his roadside restaurant failed, he took $105 from his first Social Security check and started visiting potential franchisees and eventually got Dave Thomas, founder of Wendy's, to help him make a go of Kentucky Fried Chicken. Ludwig van Beethoven continued to compose, conduct, and perform, even after becoming completely deaf.
There's no guarantee that we will achieve all, or even any, of our dreams, but one thing is certain; if we assume that the odds are against us...they are.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Donovan Baldwin is a 65-year-old accountant, amateur bodybuilder, freelance writer, certified optician, and Internet marketer currently living in the Atlanta, Gerogia area. A University Of West Florida alumnus (1973) with a BA in accounting, he has been a member of Mensa and has been a Program Accountant for the Florida State Department of Education, the Business Manager of a community mental health center, and a multi-county Fiscal Consultant for an educational field office. He has also been a trainer for a major international corporation, and has managed various small businesses, including his own. After retiring from the U. S. Army in 1995, with 21 years of service, he became interested in Internet marketing and developed various online businesses. He has been writing poetry, articles, and essays for over 40 years, and now frequently publishes original articles on his own websites and for use by other webmasters. He has posted a series of articles on The Law of Attraction , and other self-improvement issues at xtramoney4me.net/internetmarketing/reviews/law_of_attraction_articles/index.html .
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Top-level comments on this article: (2 total)That frog story is actually a pretty good fable. Poor frog! I love what you say about "failure" and I heartily agree with your conclusion!
Good article Donovan, thanks for sharing
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