Well this certainly has been an eventful week for me, full of surprises and abundance. It has also been a busy week, because of these surprises. But that didn't stop me from finishing "Chicken Soup for the Soul" by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen. And it was a great book, but I'll get into more detail about that when I do my conclusion at the end of this month.
Of the 108 stories I've read in here, there were several that really touched me, some to the point that I had to beg my husband to get me another box of tissues. But others made me think. This post is actually about two different stories, written in two different sections, but I feel like they have the same message.
The first one is Rest in Peace: The "I Can't" Funeral. It's a great story about a fourth grade teacher who has her students, and herself as well, spend some time writing down everything they can't do. No matter how trivial. Every little detail. Then she takes a shoe box and has every child place their paper in the box and leads them all outside. She then has them dig a hole three feet deep, and then they proceed to bury the "I Can't" box. Once the "funeral" is done they go back to have a "wake" with cookies and juice and are told that since "I Can't" is now dead you can only use their siblings, "I Can", "I Will", and "I'll Get To It Right Away".
I found this story absolutely charming. And it's something I wish my fourth grade teacher did when I was in elementary school. To be shown at such a young age that "I Can't" is dead and that the only way to think about the situation is to figure out how to say "I Can" do something. It really puts things in perspective. We often remind ourselves every day what we can't do. But what if for every one thing we can't do, we remember three things we can do. Think about all the confidence people would have in themselves. And if everyone was forced to see what everyone else "Can" do rather than what they "Can't" do, then how much more positive and better relationships would be. It's definitely something to think about.
And the second story? Well it's more of a list of things that people are famous for and yet others told them that they were never going to do. People who looked at the words "You Can't" and decided that they didn't matter, and they were right, they don't. They only matter if you believe in them. And it's a good thing that these people decided it didn' matter. Here's some examples.
* After Fred Astaire's first screen test, the memo from the testing director of MGM, dated 1933, said, "Can't act! Slightly bald! Can dance a little!".
*An expert said of Vince Lombardi: "He possesses minimal football knowledge. Lacks motivation."
*Beethoven handled the violin awkwardly and preferred playing his own compositions instead of improving his technique. His teacher called him hopeless as a composer.
* In his autobiography, Darwin wrote, "I was considered by all my masters and by my father, a very ordinary boy, rather below the common standard of intellect."
* Thomas Edison's teachers said he was too stupid to learn anything.
*Henry Ford failed and went broke five times before he finally succeeded.
*Babe Ruth, considered by sports historians to be the greatest athlete of all time and famous for setting the home run record, also holds the record for strikeouts.
And on and on and on. And it's funny how we forget how many trials and tribulations the greatest minds in the world went through before they did what they are famous for. And the one thing they all had in common was they didn't believe in "I Can't".
So why should I?
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