I Can't? Just Watch Me!

"The great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do." - Walter Bagehot

This moment, I can't recall a specific instance when someone important to my development has spoken to me of things I couldn't do - another example of my good fortune. Are the people important to your development encouraging, discouraging, or somewhere in the middle?

And the rest of the voices over my sixty eight year journey? I suspect my chorus - a real mixed bag - has sounded a lot like yours. How successful are you at tuning out the naysayers? With me, it's all about timing.

I'm grateful for those times when Walter Bagehot's sage words come in handy. And he's right; it's a great pleasure to prove the doubters wrong. On other days, the negative chatter remains background noise; it may or may not interfere with what I'm up to. But infrequently - especially on those unhappy occasions when my own disappointment with what I'm doing coincides with a dissonant loud voice in the chorus - the "cannot" is more difficult to surmount. My strategy at those times? A quick nap.

Thankfully, that nap is usually enough to get me back on the job. Soon after, I hear my own voice saying - "I Can't? Just Watch Me!"