Specialize In The Impossible

Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they’ve been given than to explore the power to they have to change it.
Impossible is not a fact. It’s an opinion.
Impossible is not a declaration. It is a dare.
Impossible is potential.
Impossible is temporary.
Impossible is nothing.

  – Muhammad Ali

Every great invention and every great exploration are great, simply because at one time, it was considered impossible.

Nothing is impossible to a willing heart – John Heywood

Consider the cell phone you have in your pocket:

  • From a phonograph with vinyl records, to CDs to my Ipod – I can now carry around 1,000’s of songs on the cloud downloaded to my cell phone
  • From the telegraph to party line phones, to land lines with expensive long-distance rates, to a cell phone that started out in a large box, to what we now carry around in our pocket – we can call anywhere in the world for just pennies a call, and I can talk with family members all over the world at the same time and see them “live” with Skype.
  • From old fashion manual typewriters to electric typewriters, to word processors, to desk top computers, to my cell phone where I can text or email someone anywhere in the world and they get it in a minute.
  • From pony express mail to mail delivered via planes, trains, and automobiles to email delivered to my cell phone.
  • From the black and white TV to technicolor, to High Definition to 3D – I can now watch movies on demand, or TV shows when I want to (on demand) on my cell phone.
  • From the camera on my phone I can record, download to YouTube and become a famous person, making my own videos.

I could go on to describe so many things that we now take for granted, that just 100 yrs. ago would have been considered impossible. So, when you think that you are in an impossible situation, remember the words of Muhammad Ali, “impossible is just temporary”.

It is an opportunity to think outside the box and consider the possibilities instead.  Impossible is not a fact., it is only an opinion. 

So, stop thinking that something can’t be done and instead wonder “why not”? The only limits to your dreams are the ones that you self-impose.  In fact, it is when you are in the middle of doing the impossible thing, that you suddenly find yourself.

There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve:  the fear of failure – Paulo Coelho

When I was a kid, they had a show on T.V. called “Mission Impossible”, which later became a movies series.  Every assignment was impossible to do, and somehow, they came up with a way to be successful. 

When you have a dream that others think is impossible, they will think that you are crazy.  They will ask you why you want to try to do such a thing – it is risky, it is dangerous, it is impossible.  But once the impossible thing has been done, then they want to know how you did it.  What’s your secret?

So many of you have lived through unimaginable tragedies in your life. If you can look at what you are capable of being and doing, it gives you hope.  You have hope that so many of the things you see wrong in your world, things that can be made right.

Nothing is impossible, unless you simply decide to live in the world that you have been given. If you decide that someone’s opinion is now a fact, then you won’t have the resources or potential to change it. 

What we can or cannot do, what we consider possible or impossible is rarely a function of our true capability.  It is more likely a function of our beliefs about who we are – Anthony Robbins

What gives me hope is that someone who reads this, is one of those kinds of people.

That you are one of those people who know in your heart that impossible is a dare to do something about it. That impossible is potential that you are going to harness and make something fantastic out of it. The impossible is no-thing, that it is nothing.

Together we can change the world, because for us, nothing is impossible. We can end world hunger. We can end poverty. We can end terrorism. We can end diseases and addictions that take away our loved one’s way too early in life. 

What we need is more people who specialize in the impossible – Theodore Roethke

Sheryl Silbaugh

I am married with 4 grown children who are all married and currently have 14 grandchildren and two great granddaughters. I work fulltime as a Director at Bank of America and I am the founder of LemonadeMakers.org, which is a website and Facebook page dedicated to personal transformation and growth. We all have life's lemons show up in our life, this website helps us to make them into lemonade.