Key points
- Limits imposed by nature influence the goals we can accomplish.
- Limits that arise through our policies and practices can create barriers for many and opportunities for a few.
- It is our controlling nature that defines what a limit is and how and what it limits.
- Addressing limits to achieve a more equitable distribution of opportunities would be a giant leap forward for humanity.
In my internet browsing this morning, I happened to discover a quote by a chap named Brian Tracy: “There are no limits to what you can accomplish, except the limits you place on your own thinking.” It might be that the intent behind the composition of this particular sequence of words is to motivate and inspire. I’m actually a big fan of these kinds of quotes as well as tales of heroic deeds that invite you to stretch your imagination and marvel at the tenacity and talents of the human spirit. Sometimes, however, the sentiment of a quote such as this can be dangerously misleading.
I’m all for thinking big and dreaming even bigger but the fact is, there are limits to what we can accomplish. Life itself has limits. Death is an unavoidable limit. Even before that final limit there are other constraints with which we constantly contend.
Perhaps we could partition the limits of living into two broad groups. Some limits have to do with our existence as physical beings made of matter that has unmistakable points of no return. Other limits have to do with the way we organize our affairs in the communities and societies we create.
Bones can break, muscles can tear, flesh can burn, organs can fail. We need air to breathe and food to nourish. Hospitals are full of people who, for one reason or another, strayed beyond a particular limit and experienced the brunt of nature’s contempt for our carelessness.
As a teenager growing up in the days when sunbathing and tanned skin were very much the order of the day, I did what I could to join the bronzed brigade. Unfortunately, nature assigned me an insufficient amount of the right ingredients to ever achieve that goal. No matter how much I pictured myself with a glowing toffee coloured complexion I could not persuade my skin to do anything other than turn scarlet, then blister, then peel.
So for me there are genuine limits regarding the tone of my skin. There are many other examples we could all share about limits we inherit or acquire throughout our lives. While there is perhaps no limit to the goals we can imagine, there are definite limits to what we are able to accomplish. At least in a physical sense.
There is another group of limits, however, that has to do with the circumstances and conditions within which a person enters the world and grows and develops. Due to an uneven and inequitable distribution of resources such as food and wealth, many people face limits on what they can accomplish. A family whose home is a tarpaulin in a crowded and muddy refugee camp will have limits on what can be achieved.
Even in affluent towns and cities some people live in poverty. Because of the way in which particular societies have organized their affairs the gap between the “haves” and the “have nots” is very wide and getting wider. People who don’t have enough to eat on a regular basis and children who are not able to access schooling and education will have limits on what they can accomplish.
Many limits can, of course, be overcome. Perhaps that is a valuable lesson to take from quotes such as the one I have shared. There is a sense though in which a quote such as this seems to place a disproportionate burden of responsibility on individuals while ignoring the contexts within which individuals conduct their affairs.
You don’t know what you don’t know. When people are denied access to various resources of living that are readily available to others it seems somewhat mean-spirited to suggest that they could accomplish more if they didn’t limit their thinking.
Perhaps we would progress further and more rapidly if we scrutinized rather than dismissed limits. Limits are important. We always set, pursue, and achieve goals within limits. The dreams we dare to dream will emerge from the experiences, events, and ideas to which we have somehow been exposed. Would it be more productive to raise our awareness of limits and to better understand what it is they are limiting? Opportunities might be the key.
We are creatures who want. We don’t all want the same things but for as long as we breathe, we want, and we ceaselessly pursue what we want. When wants are obstructed we do whatever we can to remove the impediments. Social groups that are characterized by shrinking opportunities for many and simultaneously burgeoning opportunities for a few are precariously imbalanced. Such an imbalance is a constant irritant to the way we are designed.
A brighter future for our kind is well within our grasp but it requires a brutally frank appreciation of limits. We need to identify limits and recognize what it is they limit. We are built to control NOT to be controlled. Our most significant social limit may be the way we limit each other. Arranging our societies so that people can cherish their own wants without limiting the pursuit by others of the wants they treasure may be the key to the next giant leap forward in the evolution of humanity and what it can accomplish.
