People did that

Humans have done amazing things, and you can too

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning,
This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
tip is to marvel at the amazing things that people
have accomplished. You can take encouragement from these wonders that

(00:24):
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 acknowledge their finitude and limitations.
He's quick to point out all the things that we

(00:44):
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 limits, we
can make smart choices about how to use the time
and capacity we do have. As he explains, the relationship

(01:08):
between the two kinds of impossible, is actually an adverse 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,

(01:33):
and psychological 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,

(01:56):
people have done some amazing things 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,
where that infant and maternal mortality has plummeted over the

(02:19):
last one hundred and fifty years. I mean, hey, we
get pictures sent back from the far 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 twenty four hours in a day when we use

(02:40):
that time well, we can accomplish some pretty amazing things too,
se Fe pardue 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

(03:02):
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,

(03:26):
or that your local food brink had lots of ken
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

(03:49):
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
Laura vandercam dot com. In the meantime, this is Laura.

(04:12):
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 Laura vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast is a

(04:39):
production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts from iHeartMedia, please visit
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your favorite shows.