Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning,
Speaker 1: This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
Speaker 1: tip is to marvel at the amazing things that people
Speaker 1: have accomplished. You can take encouragement from these wonders that
Speaker 1: you can do great things too. Today's tip, like some
Speaker 1: others I've talked about recently, comes from Oliver Berkman's book
Speaker 1: Meditations for Mortals. If you've read anything by Berkman, you
Speaker 1: know that he urges people to acknowledge their finitude and limitations.
Speaker 1: He's quick to point out all the things that we
Speaker 1: just can't do. You can't be in two places at once.
Speaker 1: You don't have unlimited time. You can't render yourself so
Speaker 1: efficient that no incoming volume of work could ever overwhelm you,
Speaker 1: he writes. But when we recognize our true limits, we
Speaker 1: can make smart choices about how to use the time
Speaker 1: and capacity we do have. As he explains, the relationship
Speaker 1: between the two kinds of impossible, is actually an adverse one.
Speaker 1: The more you are willing wholeheartedly to acknowledge the hard
Speaker 1: limitations of human finitude, the easier it gets to do
Speaker 1: what others might dismiss as impossible, he continues. Once you
Speaker 1: stop struggling to stay on top of everything or to
Speaker 1: make everything perfect, you are rewarded with the time, energy,
Speaker 1: and psychological freedom to accomplish the most of which anyone
Speaker 1: could be capable. When you stop trying to do everything perfectly,
Speaker 1: you can perhaps do something more meaningful and grand than
Speaker 1: you could have imagined. You can stand in awe of
Speaker 1: the wonderful things other people have done and be encouraged
Speaker 1: and inspired to do something great yourself. And let's be clear,
Speaker 1: people have done some amazing things and then rebuilding Notre
Speaker 1: Dame composing the B minor mass or think about Beethoven's
Speaker 1: Ninth Symphony, which he composed after losing much of his hearing.
Speaker 1: I think the near complete eradication of smallpox is pretty exciting,
Speaker 1: where that infant and maternal mortality has plummeted over the
Speaker 1: last one hundred and fifty years. I mean, hey, we
Speaker 1: get pictures sent back from the far reaches of outer space.
Speaker 1: How cool is that people, working both individually and together
Speaker 1: accomplish these things. And while plenty of people are more
Speaker 1: talented or skilled than the rest of us, we all
Speaker 1: have twenty four hours in a day when we use
Speaker 1: that time well, we can accomplish some pretty amazing things too,
Speaker 1: se Fe pardue Monde. According to Berkman, that's an old
Speaker 1: fashioned French Canadian saying that essentially means people did that,
Speaker 1: and we are people too. If you decided to carve
Speaker 1: out time every day for the next year to write
Speaker 1: your family's story, you would end the year with something
Speaker 1: pretty solid. It might need work, but it would exist.
Speaker 1: If you took pictures every day for the next year
Speaker 1: and studied how to use light and frame things well,
Speaker 1: by the end of the year, you would no doubt
Speaker 1: have a few images you would be quite proud of.
Speaker 1: I bet you could team up with other people in
Speaker 1: your community to make sure that every kid at your
Speaker 1: local elementary school had books to read over the summer,
Speaker 1: or that your local food brink had lots of ken
Speaker 1: friendly food for the summer season as well. As Berkman argues,
Speaker 1: when we accept our limitations and finitude, paradoxically, we are
Speaker 1: able to accomplish much more than we would if we
Speaker 1: were overly focused on perfection. Recognizing what is literally impossible
Speaker 1: paves the way to do something great that only seems impossible.
Speaker 1: So what Moonshot could you tackle. If you let go
Speaker 1: of the pressure to answer every email, I'd love to
Speaker 1: hear about it. You can reach me at Laura at
Speaker 1: Laura vandercam dot com. In the meantime, this is Laura.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, and here's to making the most of
Speaker 1: our time. Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast. If you've
Speaker 1: got questions, ideas, or feedback, you can reach me at
Speaker 1: Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast is a
Speaker 1: production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts from iHeartMedia, please visit
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.