It Couldn’t Be Done by Edgar Albert Guest

It Couldn’t Be Done by Edgar Albert Guest

Orville at right wing end of upended glider, bottom view; Kitty Hawk, North Carolina

Orville at right wing end of upended glider, bottom view; Kitty Hawk, North Carolina

George Bernard Shaw said, “But I dream things that never were; and I say, “Why not?”

Indeed, ‘Why not?’ Two simple words with a question mark, open up a whole new world of possibilities – if we will only take a moment to look deeply within ourselves. The first and foremost reaction of most, including myself at times, is to shoot off a idea and to deem it not possible the first time we hear it.

Negativity kicks in for most people and the pessimist in us said, “It couldn’t be done.” Really? Or to be honest with ourselves, are we fearing the hidden growth or the butterflies in the stomach? The nervousness that speaks to us, “Hey, I haven’t done this before. It looks scary and I don’t know what or how to do it.” Tune in to the optimist inside us and let us ask ourselves, ‘Why not?’

Lessons come to us in the most unspeakable hours; they hit you when the time is right and it sure doesn’t matter whether we are expecting them. That, I called it ‘Moment of realisation.’ This particular lesson came to me when I was lying on my bed last night, playing with my phone and checking out my page in Facebook, when I read the poetry ‘It Couldn’t be Done‘ by Edgar Albert Guest.

Whenever we have an idea and we are all excited to share it with the people around us, guess what? Wet blankets cover us, we fall flatly on our face, and the next moment doubts creep in silently. We told ourselves, “Maybe it is not such a brilliant idea after all.” We trust the opinion of people around us instead of ourselves. They have successfully ‘killed’ our idea. Remember the ‘crab mentality?’

Love the doubts. Yes, love it, as it may be true sometimes. However, we should be trusting our intuition more. Ask ourselves this, “How many times we had great ideas, and we shared with people closest to us about these ideas and suddenly they made us feel like they are not such great ideas after all.” Then one day, we overheard that someone else had made great use of our idea! ‘If only,’ we told ourselves. Let us face this, a lot of time, the people who are closest to us, they are the greatest ideas ‘killers.’

However, we have to take full responsibility for that as we chose to ask them in the first place; we can’t expect people around us to know everything especially with things they have not done before. We chose to listen to their well-meaning opinions. Sometimes, we have to take the road less travelled or even to create new trails for others to follow.

The next time when someone told us, “It couldn’t be done,” let us answer them with a smile, and say, “Why not?” We’ll do it anyway and let our action doing the talking for us.
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It Couldn’t Be Done by Edgar Albert Guest

Somebody said that it couldn’t be done
But he with a chuckle replied
That “Maybe it couldn’t,” but he would be one
Who wouldn’t say so till he’d tried.
So he buckled right in with the trace of a grin
On his face. If he worried he hid it.
He started to sing as he tackled the thing
That couldn’t be done, and he did it!

Somebody scoffed: “Oh, you’ll never do that;
At least no one ever has done it;”
But he took off his coat and he took off his hat
And the first thing we knew he’d begun it.
With a lift of his chin and a bit of a grin,
Without any doubting or quiddit,
He started to sing as he tackled the thing
That couldn’t be done, and he did it.

There are thousands to tell you it cannot be done,
There are thousands to prophesy failure,
There are thousands to point out to you one by one,
The dangers that wait to assail you.
But just buckle in with a bit of a grin,
Just take off your coat and go to it;
Just start in to sing as you tackle the thing
That “cannot be done,” and you’ll do it.
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Photo Credit: Wikipedia

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