"you can do anything you set your mind to"

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"you can do anything you set your mind to". uppity positive encouraging Psychobabble. (factually wrong).

b/c someone had the nerve to tell me that "you can do anything you set your mind to", when i was young, i wasted a lot of energy on strctural engineering, and et cetera and still academic dismissal. made redundant from work. dumped by "friends".

plenty of factors influence the outcome: efficiency, health, luck, $$$, discrimination, longevity.

besides, sunk costs, effort justification, personal opportunity costs

everything i attempt, is like "you can't make a silk purse out of a sows ear".

i am so pathetic, useless, worthless, incompetent, hopeless, helpless, angry, bitter, passive aggressive, scared, hateful, misanthropic, fat, ugly, broke, exhausted, physically weak

outnumbered overpowered outsmarted


(puke!)

No matter how much time and effort I invest, my personal space program will never reach the moon.

That said, time and effort can massively change smaller scale outcomes.

I think most people who say you can do anything you set your mind to are understanding that there's nuance to how true that statement is, while you're evaluating it from a more literal perspective.

It's a bit BS for basically anybody that isn't ultra wealthy. Sure, you probably can achieve more than you think, but there's always a limit. Even as a billionaire, there's no way that Musk is going to get to Mars in our lifetimes.

Yeah, it is kind of offensive for people who have zero chance of upwards social mobility due to disability, societal discrimination and so on and to then turn around to say to those people that "you can do anything you set your mind to."

Maybe on a personal level there is some truth to this, but society holds a lot of people back unnecessarily and unjustifiably.

I like my father's approach. When I was younger and still optimistic. I would ask him about what's possible.
"Daddy, can I become prime minister?"
He would without hesitation respond "you can try" I found that encouraging enough.

To me it has not enough nuances.
So I'll break it open;

What exactly is the prerequisites for setting one's mind into something, other than the whole premise of "openness", idea of the promises of whatever that something was, inspiration, stubborness and future feel goods or as an idea of a solution to whatever?

Not to mention the thresholds to make it so possible like potential and talent; in which are very unpredictable and somewhat unreliable. I'm not even entering the realms of beliefs over possibilities or statistics.

On the note on "openness", there's the trust the process or not overthinking.
Yeah, right. As if either everyone works the same way or is dealing the same crap.

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The reason why my worthless corpse is just a lot attendant, is not because I didn't set my mind to anything, and it is certainly not because I set my mind to becoming a lot attendant

The reason why I am just a lot attendant is because "you can't make a silk purse out of a sows ear"

I think I'm capable of achieving most tasks as long as there's enough time. Therein lies the problem, and it's becoming a bigger problem all the time.

Yes, this can-do culture gives me the pip. I think it only works on defeatists, and it probably doesn't work on them either, unless their defeatism is softer than the defeatism I've usually seen in people. And there certainly is such a word as "can't," in spite of those who say otherwise. It's amazing what determination can achieve but there are limits. Sometimes throwing in the towel is wise.

Rich people can "do" a lot more because a lot of it amounts to paying somebody else to do it for them. For almost everybody else it usually involves a combination of spending some money and doing some work. Personally I like performing near-miracles without spending anything, or by spending remarkably little. It's a tendency often acquired by those from a poor background.

I've heard this phrase & similar & also much worse from my mom when I was a kid, teen, & in my 20s. It came off to me as a kind of victim-blaming. My mom was criticizing me for various things & telling me that I was failing or not moving forward because I was not trying hard enough despite the fact I was trying my very best but I'm just not meant to be great in certain things. You cant free a fish from water & telling a fish that he could survive outside of water if he just puts his mind to it is total bull-sh!t. Also with some things I could potentially do a lot better but I needed help & connections that I did not/do not have access to.
It's also important to note that sometimes people say that phrase because they are trying to sound supportive & don't know what else to say or they just want the conversation to drop.

nick

yes, that's how i see it.

if "you can do anything you set your mind to" were true, then effort is the only factor that determines the outcome.

it also implies that if someone tries and fails to do something, then the reason why they failed, was b/c of inadequate effort.

but that is not always correct, b/c plenty of factors determine the outcome: health, longevity, personality, $$$, economics, discrimination, potential