What Are The Limits To Success?

Posted on August 23rd, 2009 by Scott

Perhaps the limits we believe in are nothing more than wrong assumptions caused by having too little information, too little experience.

Since we haven’t been out there in the unknown (that’s why they call it the unknown), we can’t make definitive declarations about territory we haven’t yet experienced. Obviously, nobody knows.

However…

There’s a marvelous cartoon sent to me by a friend recently. In this little four-panel comic, two people are all scrunched up inside a cardboard box, complaining about how terribly cramped they are. One of them becomes so frustrated that he flings his arms wide and accidentally rams a fist through one of the cardboard walls.

Then, instead of peering curiously out the new hole in their tiny cage, they cower away. In the final panel, the viewpoint zooms out to show the same scene from outside the box, and voices from inside are worrying that they’re guilty of committing some terrible sin.

Limits? If you’re tempted to say, “Logically, there MUST be limits,” stop and think again. C’mon now, can you honestly claim that you’ve explored all of what you already know about? Maybe no one will find any kind of boundaries on human abilities, thoughts or activities in our lifetime, nor in that of our children.

Now, this whole discussion has wandered away from the question of limits on success, but I suspect the same principle applies.

In today’s world, our routine daily life encompasses activities that, just half a century ago, were just about undreamed of, back in the early fifties.

A friend of mine lives in Japan, publishes his articles and lessons on a computer there, and people are able to access and read them from their own computer, wherever in the world they happen to live.

In fact, the whole idea of personal computers was a topic fit only for wild-eyed science fiction stories back in 1950. I’ll bet the work you do – at least half of it – didn’t even exist back then, at the mid-century mark.

And yet, here we are, doing the impossible. I may have more Internet friends that I have never met, than all my face-to-face friends. You may be the same.

And when we’re in the mood for a bit of entertainment, thanks to the magic of computer graphics, we can watch dinosaurs and Incredible Hulks and Spidermen and all manner of amazing things happen right before our eyes. Toys spring to life in most convincing ways.

I sometimes wonder what kind of reaction we’d get if we could take half a dozen of those graphics-laden movies back 75 or 80 years and show them in a theater of ordinary movie-goers. What would they think of Star Wars? How about Jurassic Park… or virtually any movie produced today?

That idea itself would make a great movie, don’t you think?

So here we are, doing things that just a few short years ago were not even conceivable. And being incredibly blasé about it.

And that’s why I don’t have much belief in so-called limits. Especially limits on success and prosperity.

Scott Barker- EzineArticles- Expert Author