Achieving the Impossible Takes A Little Longer

Originally published in June 2016.

A REFLECTION ON THE MOVIE THE WALK (2015)

Life can be like a circus act. We perform for people who don't deserve our talent. But we don't do what we do for audiences... No, we perform for the selfish idea called "passion." Passion drives us to step out onto the void and walk across cable wires.

French Finance Minister to King Louis XVI is noted for saying in his collection so tales entitled "Domestic Anecdotes of the French Nations" (1794), "The difficult we do immediately; the impossible takes a little longer."

The key to understanding acts of impossibility is three letters: YET. Something denoted as impossible simply means no one had the wherewithal, the patience, the knowledge, the wisdom, and especially the passion to figure it out YET.

This past week, Tony Hawk accomplished a skateboarding trick deemed impossible. But he conquered it. And now countless others will try to do it. They will get hurt, scraped knees, bruises, cuts and even broken bones. But if Tony can do it, that gives hope to others aspiring to greatness.

Affirmation is the bonus to achieving the impossible. We do what we do to prove to ourselves that we can conquer ourselves, our physical, mental, emotional and spiritual limitations, our doubts, our shortcomings, our negativities. When others acknowledge our greatness, then it is that affirmation that confirms what we set out to prove to ourselves. In the circus act of life, our greatest accomplice and competitor is looking at us in the mirror.

~Michael DeNobile