Where there's a will, there's a way

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Can anyone find discussion of this common expression or a similar concept on a relatively neurotypical forum? I'm wondering if this thread might have a pessimistic bias since Wrong Planet might have a tendency to attract the less-successful and understandably pessimistic types, and I'm curious to see how the average neurotypical opinion might be different.

I can't stand when people have a "anyone can do anything" attitude. Not everyone can do everything. Thinking that way for some people is only going to set you up for failure over and over again until you quit trying.

I've found a couple of threads, one on a German forum for dance enthusiasts and one on a German site called Www.Zitate-online.de.

The dance thread had only 3 posts but all quite positive towards the saying (those happy dance enthusiasts!). There were about 10 contributions on the proverb discussion site and they were quite mixed. 4 out of 10 positive posts, 2 nonsense posts, 3 critical/negative posts and 1 post that's a bit hard to judge, quoting as it does Churchill (allegedly, I've no idea if this is a true quote): "Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm" !

Make of that what you will. Not representative but hopefully a useful contribution.

I personally think that willpower and its useful friend, perseverance, are important and useful qualities needed to achieve stuff, but without some natural talent, and a goodly portion of good fortune many things will not be achievable.

Last edited by readingbetweenlines on 30 Nov 2011, 4:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I agree. Growing up I was told that over and over "you can do anything" because of my IQ. No one understood my limitations then and they still don't. I am just now starting to realize what they are myself, at 33, after years of wondering why I couldn't do things.

If will was the only thing you needed to make a way into something I would be living a very different life.

Is that because of ADHD? Do you know what measurable cognitive factor, more exactly, might be responsible for these difficulties?

I'm curious because it seems like you might have a somewhat similar communication style as I, and my IQ is/was also relatively high and there's suspicions I might have ADHD (I'm currently getting tested). In my investigations, it appears that working memory might be responsible (Various working memory tests online suggest it's at around the 30th-50th percentile, which is far below what an IQ in the 99th percentile would predict; there's a good correlation between "working memory" and IQ according to various research), and "verbal working memory" might be more directly responsible for the seemingly "not quite what you'd expect" verbal abilities (In comparison to similarly high IQ peers.).

Thanks!

When I was in reform school and they tested my iq I can't remember exactly what they said but they said something about how I have more potential or whatever compared to other people they tested that have much lower iqs.

Having a high iq didn't do me any good. It just meant I was good at doing tests and made them confused about why I had so many problems in school.

I'm not sure. Yes I think it has a lot to do with my ADHD but not entirely and I don't know specifically what aspects of it have caused the most trouble for me. There are other factors besides ADHD, like I had a really abusive childhood. I am more realistic these days about what I can/can't do but the underlying reasons are varied and complex.

I do know I have terrible working memory. When I was diagnosed (15 years ago), that was the part of the test I did the worst on. It was something to do with adding numbers from memory. I think they called out a series of numbers and I was supposed to add each number to the last one that was called. I couldn't do it to save my life. It was torture and I think that was the part of the test when I burst into tears.

If I had to pin it down to one thing though I'd say that social impairments have generated the most difficulty for me.