Pablo Picasso Month - Day 11

We often defeat ourselves with our own words and worries. I am always amazed (and not in a good way) at the abundance of people whose first response to any challenge is "I can't..."

He can who thinks he can, and he can't who thinks he can't. This is an inexorable, indisputable law.

~ Pablo Picasso

We shouldn't Pollyanna our way through life, but we need to push back against the urge to "I can't" ourselves out of new things. I've been there too, though. So tied into what I thought was inevitable that I couldn't see there even were other possibilities. It can creep up on you, that "I can't" mindset, that feeling that you aren't very good at something, anything...

My mother would always tell us that if we started out with "I can't" we most certainly cannot. [She actually used to say "Cain't never did nothing," – used to drive me crazy.] As kids we weren't allowed to say "I can't" until we had given it our best attempt, at leasttwo or three times. It's not that my parents were task-drivers, or harsh; they were very caring and supportive. They just thought that we shouldn't take the easy way out, and to them "I can't" was taking the easy way out. And the result of that was that all of us kids – and most of our kids – are very well equipped to take on the challenges the world throws at us.

I think all the "I can't"-ers would benefit from living with my mother in their formative years.

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Why Pablo Picasso Month?