Can You Do the Impossible?

Summary

The article discusses the balance between accepting the inevitable and pushing oneself to achieve seemingly impossible goals, drawing on insights from Dale Carnegie's "How to Stop Worrying and Start Living" and Napoleon Hill's "Think and Grow Rich."

Abstract

The author reflects on the benefits of reading multiple books simultaneously, noting how similar or contrasting ideas can resonate across different texts. The article delves into the concept of "cooperating with the inevitable" from Dale Carnegie's work, which suggests focusing on what one can control rather than worrying about unchangeable circumstances. This is contrasted with Napoleon Hill's philosophy that a combination of faith and burning desire can lead to achieving anything. The author synthesizes these ideas, proposing that while it's important to challenge oneself and redefine the boundaries of possibility, it's equally crucial to recognize when to accept the inevitable. The balance lies in pursuing difficult but achievable goals, like career changes or personal projects, while not expending energy on futile efforts, such as altering natural phenomena.

Opinions

Reading various books concurrently can enhance the reading experience and provide a richer understanding of concepts through the comparison of ideas.
Dale Carnegie's advice to focus on what can be changed is seen as practical and stress-reducing.
Napoleon Hill's belief in the power of faith and desire is acknowledged, but with caution against setting oneself up for disappointment by pursuing truly impossible feats.
The author suggests that a balanced approach to ambition and acceptance is key to personal growth and agency over one's life.
The concept of "picking your battles" is important in determining which challenges to undertake and which to acknowledge as beyond one's influence.
The author emphasizes the importance of not being paralyzed by the notion of inevitability, encouraging readers to strive for significant yet attainable goals.

Can You Do the Impossible?

I love reading multiple books at the same time. It’s one of the ways I can keep myself reading. If a particular book starts to feel like an obligation, I switch it up to find something else that I enjoy reading.

Read what you love until you love to read. — Naval Ravikant

Another benefit of reading multiple books at the same time is that same idea can jump out at you from multiple sources. In some cases, the ideas can be opposing.

Cooperating with the Inevitable:

I am currently reading Dale Carnegie’s, How to Stop Worrying and Start Living. It has lots of practical advice to de-stress yourself. One of the chapters talks about not bothering to worry about things you can’t change. He calls it: cooperating with the inevitable. You are much better off putting your thoughts and energy into things you can change than worrying about the things you can’t control. The idea harnesses the energy you would spend stressing and focuses it on effecting the things within your scope of influence. He includes lots of testimonials and examples throughout the book that help make the idea more vivid than I can in this short article. One good practical example from the book is the serenity prayer, which embodies the stoic sentiment of the idea:

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, and Wisdom to know the difference.

Pushing Yourself:

Another book I am reading is Napoleon Hill’s, Think and Grow Rich. One of the ideas in the book is that faith combined with a burning desire can help you achieve anything. Hill walks through a few examples of his own life including helping his deaf son to hear and Edwin Barnes developing a business relationship with Thomas Edison out of thin air. On the face of it, this is in stark contrast to cooperating with the inevitable. Which one is correct?

Finding a Good Balance:

I think each idea has its place. The key lies in where you set the line of what can be accomplished (inevitable/impossible). The “I can do anything” mindset could be helpful in removing your preconceptions about really hard tasks that are not technically impossible. For instance, making a big change to manage your own investments, start writing on medium, or starting a new career can be very scary, but they are not impossible. There are plenty of examples of people tackling these really hard tasks, why not you?

Hill would say nothing is impossible. I think this takes things too far. Trying to achieve something truly extreme, such as traveling back in time, probably sets you up for disappointment. Taken to the other extreme of completely cooperating with the inevitable, could force you to lose agency over your own life. If you assume that everything is inevitable, then why try and change anything?

The other important aspect in determining which idea to follow is picking your battles. Do you have a complete faith and a burning desire to prevent the sun from rising tomorrow? I sure don’t. It might be better to cooperate with the inevitable on this one.

I would summarize the best balance of the two ides as: Challenge yourself on what is possible to accomplish, on things that really matter. If it isn’t critical and is really hard, then its probably better to cooperate with the inevitable.

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Can You Do the Impossible?

Cooperating with the Inevitable:

Pushing Yourself:

Finding a Good Balance:

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