Join the Neopoet online poetry workshop and community to improve as a writer, meet fellow poets, and showcase your work. Sign up, submit your poetry, and get started.
Limitations
This will begin, as it often does, with a story. For the uninitiated, I believe our lives are full of stories and most of them are entertaining or instructional or both in some way and the goal is to find the hook so that when we tell these stories be they funny or inspiring, we entertain or inspire others.
This story takes place in the way back of 1983. I was married for the first time and going to school while working and one of my classes, Accounting or COBOL programming, had degenerated into a conversation on limitations.
The common statement about limitations is:
"We have no limitations; we can do anything if we set our mind to it."
And this is complete and utter crap. It is demonstrably false. It is optimism without substance and it is damaging to people just as those folks who claim their success is a result of praying the right way and a gift from God. Their implication is, in both instances:
"You are not as good a person as I am, that's why you fail, bitch"
OK, I added the "Bitch" part but it's because, as far as I am concerned, that's exactly the attitude.
Consider an eyesight test. In a measurement of eyesight, I will do poorly against some people, better than others. If I try really hard and really put my mind to it, if I think positively and throw myself into the process, I will still score better than some and not as well as some others and no amount of positive attitude will change this.
What will change it are corrective lenses. Let me get my eyes examined and an appropriate prescription issued and corrective lenses worn and, suddenly, my performance increases to match that of the top performers.
And it was not because I put my mind to it, it was because I recognized my limitations and worked to circumvent or exceed them. But had I just depended on a positive attitude, I would be stuck in the same place, saying one thing and living another and that would be sad.
I have flat feet and bad joints. I could never have stood up to the rigors of playing professional sports and was excluded from joining the military. At 17 my doctor told me I would have arthritis by 40 and suffer a loss of mobility and flexibility and function. And I have. I've had a knee and a shoulder repaired but by pushing myself, by staying active, by refusing to let my circumstances define me, at 49 I am still flexible and active and more mobile than many folks half my age. I am not as mobile and active as I could be without arthritis but by knowing my limitations I have worked to circumvent and exceed it. And although I am a decent athlete, I am an excellent coach. Why? Because I have had to break things down to a degree so I understood what works and what does not in order to exceed my natural limitations.
I am mildly dyslexic. I have an excellent vocabulary but have issues spelling even the simplest words and, at times, I know exactly what a word means down to giving you every aspect of the definition but the actual word has become "stuck" in my mind due to how I first read it and my pronunciation of this word will suffer. I know this and rather than say "I'm dyslexic, deal with it" I say "I'm dyslexic, I will make mistakes, please tell me when I do so and I will correct them."
Because dyslexia is a limitation but my response to it can either enshrine this limitation or work to exceed it.
Fine, fine, I am a wonderful person who overcomes various and sundry adversities, so frigging what?
Just this, limitations and devising strategies to exceed or circumvent them set us up as excellent teachers.
This story takes place in the way back of 1983. I was married for the first time and going to school while working and one of my classes, Accounting or COBOL programming, had degenerated into a conversation on limitations.
The common statement about limitations is:
"We have no limitations; we can do anything if we set our mind to it."
And this is complete and utter crap. It is demonstrably false. It is optimism without substance and it is damaging to people just as those folks who claim their success is a result of praying the right way and a gift from God. Their implication is, in both instances:
"You are not as good a person as I am, that's why you fail, bitch"
OK, I added the "Bitch" part but it's because, as far as I am concerned, that's exactly the attitude.
Consider an eyesight test. In a measurement of eyesight, I will do poorly against some people, better than others. If I try really hard and really put my mind to it, if I think positively and throw myself into the process, I will still score better than some and not as well as some others and no amount of positive attitude will change this.
What will change it are corrective lenses. Let me get my eyes examined and an appropriate prescription issued and corrective lenses worn and, suddenly, my performance increases to match that of the top performers.
And it was not because I put my mind to it, it was because I recognized my limitations and worked to circumvent or exceed them. But had I just depended on a positive attitude, I would be stuck in the same place, saying one thing and living another and that would be sad.
I have flat feet and bad joints. I could never have stood up to the rigors of playing professional sports and was excluded from joining the military. At 17 my doctor told me I would have arthritis by 40 and suffer a loss of mobility and flexibility and function. And I have. I've had a knee and a shoulder repaired but by pushing myself, by staying active, by refusing to let my circumstances define me, at 49 I am still flexible and active and more mobile than many folks half my age. I am not as mobile and active as I could be without arthritis but by knowing my limitations I have worked to circumvent and exceed it. And although I am a decent athlete, I am an excellent coach. Why? Because I have had to break things down to a degree so I understood what works and what does not in order to exceed my natural limitations.
I am mildly dyslexic. I have an excellent vocabulary but have issues spelling even the simplest words and, at times, I know exactly what a word means down to giving you every aspect of the definition but the actual word has become "stuck" in my mind due to how I first read it and my pronunciation of this word will suffer. I know this and rather than say "I'm dyslexic, deal with it" I say "I'm dyslexic, I will make mistakes, please tell me when I do so and I will correct them."
Because dyslexia is a limitation but my response to it can either enshrine this limitation or work to exceed it.
Fine, fine, I am a wonderful person who overcomes various and sundry adversities, so frigging what?
Just this, limitations and devising strategies to exceed or circumvent them set us up as excellent teachers.