{"id":10939,"date":"2016-01-21T13:06:40","date_gmt":"2016-01-21T18:06:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dougbittinger.com\/thoughts\/?p=10939"},"modified":"2025-04-21T01:56:38","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T05:56:38","slug":"difficult-does-not-mean-impossible","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/difficult-does-not-mean-impossible\/","title":{"rendered":"Difficult Does Not Mean Impossible"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-10940\" src=\"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-content\/uploads\/Difficult-not-impossible.jpg\" alt=\"Difficult does not mean impossible\" width=\"300\" height=\"279\" \/>All too many times we look at a situation or task and say, &#8220;That&#8217;s impossible&#8221;, but what we really mean to say is &#8220;that&#8217;s too difficult for me&#8221; because there have been many times that the impossible only remained impossible until someone did it.<\/p>\n<p>At one time, the &#8220;experts&#8221; insisted that man could not fly.\u00a0 Then others invented the hot air balloon and the airplane.\u00a0 Then the experts insisted that the airplane would never fly faster than the speed of sound.\u00a0 Then others developed sleeker plane bodies and stronger materials, and now jet fighters routinely fly faster than sound.\u00a0 There are so many examples where greater understanding made the impossible possible.\u00a0 But someone had to believe it was possible and work hard to find the way.<\/p>\n<p>I know a couple of fellas: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dannetherland.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Dan Netherland<\/a> and his son <a href=\"https:\/\/www.chadnetherland.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Chad<\/a> who hold numerous Guinness World Records for feats of strength and doing what others could not.\u00a0 Both will tell you that they accomplished this through training and perseverance.\u00a0 Hard work.<\/p>\n<p>J.K. Rowling (an author you may be aware of) gave a commencement speech at Harvard University in 2008 in which she lauded the benefits of failure and hard work.\u00a0 In case you missed it:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/1711302\" width=\"500\" height=\"376\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>You and I may not be revolutionary aircraft designers, or superhuman, or billionaire authors (yet), in fact we may often look at the road ahead and lament, &#8220;Oh, this is impossible!&#8221;\u00a0 But, we can look around and see that the impossible is done on a regular basis.\u00a0 Doing the impossible &#8212; even when it&#8217;s a matter of being so for <em>me<\/em>, given my circumstances and skills &#8212; doesn&#8217;t mean it can&#8217;t be done: just that it takes more work than would something easier.<\/p>\n<p>If it is really important, don&#8217;t give up.\u00a0 Don&#8217;t get sidetracked.\u00a0 Don&#8217;t allow set-backs to dissuade you.\u00a0 Thomas Edison is quoted, in regards to the light bulb, as saying, &#8220;I have <strong>not failed<\/strong>. I&#8217;ve just found 10,000 ways that won&#8217;t work.&#8221;\u00a0 Eventually, he found a way that did work and accomplished the impossible.\u00a0 So can we.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>All too many times we look at a situation or task and say, &ldquo;That&rsquo;s impossible&rdquo;, but what we really mean to say is &ldquo;that&rsquo;s too difficult for me&rdquo; because there have been many times that the impossible only remained impossible until someone did it. At one time, the &ldquo;experts&rdquo; insisted that man could not fly.&nbsp; &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/difficult-does-not-mean-impossible\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Difficult Does Not Mean Impossible&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[37,29],"class_list":["post-10939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","tag-inspirational","tag-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10939"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10939\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20253,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10939\/revisions\/20253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}