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Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio.
Good morning. This is Laura.
Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. podcast. Today's tip is to marvel at the amazing things that people have accomplished.
You can take encouragement from these wonders that you can do great things too.
Today's tip, like some others I've talked about recently, comes from Oliver Berkman's book, Meditations for Mortals.
If you've read anything by Berkman, you know that he urges people to to acknowledge their finitude and limitations.
He's quick to point out all the things that we just can't do.
You can't be in two places at once.
You don't have unlimited time.
You can't render yourself so efficient that no incoming volume of work could ever overwhelm you, he writes.
But when we recognize our true limitations, we can make smart choices about how to use the time and capacity we do have. As he explains, the relationship between the the two kinds of impossible is actually an inverse one.
The more you are willing wholeheartedly to acknowledge the hard limitations of human finitude, the easier it gets to do what others might dismiss as impossible.
He continues, once you stop struggling to stay on top of everything or to make everything perfect, you are rewarded with the time, energy, and psychological freedom freedom, to accomplish the most of which anyone could be capable.
When you stop trying to do everything perfectly, you can perhaps do something more meaningful and grand than you could have imagined.
You can stand in awe of the wonderful things other people have done and be encouraged and inspired to do something great yourself.
And let's be clear, people have done some amazing things.
Building and then rebuilding Notre Dame.
Composing the B Minor Mass.
Or think about Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, which he composed after losing much of his hearing.
I think the near -complete eradication of smallpox is pretty exciting.
Or that infant and maternal mortality has plummeted over the last 150 years.
I mean, hey, we get pictures sent back from the far reaches reaches of outer space.
How cool is that? People working both individually and together accomplish these things.
And while plenty of people are more talented or skilled than the rest of us, we all have 24 hours in a day.
When we use that time well, we can accomplish some pretty amazing things too.
C 'est fait par du monde.
According to Berkman, that's an old -fashioned French -Canadian saying that essentially means, people did that, and we are people too.
If you decided to carve out time every day for the next year to write your family's story, you would end the year with something pretty solid.
It might need work, but it would exist. If you took pictures every day for the next year and studied how to use light and frame things well, by the end of the year you would no doubt have a few images you would be quite proud of.
I bet you could team up with other people in your community to make sure that every kid at your local elementary school had books to read over the summer, or that your local food bank had lots of kin -friendly food for the summer season as well.
As Berkman argues, when we accept our limitations and finitude, paradoxically, we are able to accomplish much more than we would if we were overly focused on perfection.
Recognizing what is literally impossible paves the way to do something great that only seems impossible.
So what moonshot could you tackle if you let go of the pressure to answer every email?
I'd love to hear about it.
You can reach me at laura at lauravandercam .com.
In the meantime, this is Laura.
Thanks for listening.
And here's to making the most of our time.
Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback, you can reach me at laura at lauravandercam .com.
Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia.
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