You can(t), you will (not)
We can all think of a time when we said “I can’t do that” or “I’m not ever going to do that”. The first one is a matter of belief in your own ability and the latter is a matter of choice.
Perhaps the reasoning behind why we say we can’t or we won’t is because of fear or doubt — what happens if I get the wrong? what will people think of me? I don’t know if I can even do it. I’ve tried before and just couldn’t do it.
I’m what you would call a high school failure — I didn’t do very well at all in all my years up to the point of my year 12 exams. In fact, I even blew the last chance I had to get into any form of tertiary education thanks to a foolish move — sadly, one of those moments where I actually “couldn’t” do it due to a lack of training. My last chance was an audition at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music to study as a musician — I’ve been playing the piano since I was 7. A few days before the audition, I was at a friend’s 18th birthday party and at the end of the night as we were cleaning up, a noticed one of my friends signalling me from a distance to give me a boost so I can jump up higher to reach the helium balloons that had made their way higher up the ceiling. I did the jump, but I came crashing down and broke my left arm, both bones. This was the turning point for me — quit fooling around and start thinking about how I can be more helpful to the people around me. I wanted to get a job — the motivation wasn’t just to get paid, it was so that I could do 3 things, support my local church and youth group, sponsor a child living in poverty and help my single income earning mum pay the mortgage. For as long as I lived under my mum’s house, I was giving away at least 50% of what I earned. Over the next 13 years, I had worked on developing myself further and worked in about 7 different roles. I’d never have thought that I would’ve been in any of these roles had you told me 13 years ago.
I love the scene in The Empire Strikes Back when Yoda says to Luke Skywalker “Do or do not. There is no try.” There’s so much truth packed into this short statement and a huge challenge to every one of us in life when faced with obstacles. In this case for me, it’s all about choice — either I will or I won’t because I’ve learned over the years through acquiring different skills that I can learn to do something if I’m willing to believe that I can and persevere through practice.
Perhaps we can think back on our own experiences where we were at a ‘disadvantage’, know or have heard of other people who were in this position and were able to break through these limitations. What was it that enabled us to be able to overcome every challenge and produce great outcomes?
On 17 December 1903, the first successful airplane was invented. Wilbur and Orville Wright had successfully made 4 brief flights at Kitty Hawk with their first man-powered aircraft. If you look a little further into their background, you wouldn’t say they were in the best position to invent the airplane — they were in the business of printing and manufacturing bicycles. They had no noticeable academic backgrounds, in fact, they never graduated from high school. They didn’t receive any funds by the government. But, they were fascinated with mechanics and flying from a young age — once when caught by his teacher working on a toy helicopter in class, Orville explained that one day he planned to build a machine big enough to fly carrying them both. This was the beginning of their dream.
What’s not widely known is that they had a main competitor — Samuel Pierpont Langley. Langley was the only person to receive government funding. At age 50, he had already achieved prominence through his work as an astronomer, a distinguished scientist and academic. You would think that Langley would be the one to achieve first flight yet he didn’t succeed. He was obsessed with making a name for himself, driven by the desire to be on par with other great inventors like Thomas Edison and have a place in history. After the Wright brother’s success, Langley abandoned this space altogether.
I recently watched Steve Harvey say to John C Maxwell at the event Live2Lead:
“Your career is what you’re paid for. Your calling is what you’re made for”.
There is so much more to life than just the achievements and the accolades — it’s the fulfilment of our deeper purpose, every person has experienced the void within us that whatever we do just doesn’t seem to satisfy the soul and every once in a while, we’ll come across things that do.
There’s something in every single one of us that is destined to make an impact. I would love to be able to help add value to every person in the world but the reality is, there are areas where I don’t have access to but you do. Every one of us matters and if we want to make a difference in our world, we need to make a choice. Start saying I will instead of I can’t. You never know who’s life you will change by how you show up, what you do and what you say.
There is something that only you can do. Will you make that choice?
James Zhang
My why is to help and inspire other people to live a full life through unconditional love
PS. I won’t be attempting another boost jump again — without first acquiring the ability to do so :)