It’s not impossible…

I enjoy being amazed; don’t you?  My wife and I have been watching The Food That Built America on The History Channel (www.history.com ), showcasing the stories of people becoming entrepreneurs and overcoming “the impossible”.  Today, in modern science; medicine; technology; space travel; virtually every field there are breakthroughs occurring around us that were once considered unattainable.  

We might agree that not all innovations serve the common good of mankind and there are many elements in our lives, our neighborhoods, our country, and throughout the world waiting for someone to think differently in order to overcome the impossible:  

The significant problems we face cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them. 

Albert Einstein 

Nonetheless, I am continuously encouraged by the daily brilliance we are witnessing.  I have always been awed and amazed by accomplishments once deemed impossible.  Of course, awesomeness and overcoming the impossible are nothing new.  Mankind has been achieving those heights throughout our history.  When you think about it, what amazes you?  Here’s another example from The History Channel:  

How did they do that so long ago without the benefit of today’s “modernness”?  I’m not sure, but perhaps they first started by deciding it was not impossible, and went from there. 

One of my favorite books, The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914 © by David McCullough details the degree of steadfastness needed to build what others had previously failed at and what many submitted was impossible to build: 

For anyone to picture the volume of earth that had to be removed to build the Panama Canal was an all but hopeless proportion.  Statistics were broadcast - 15,700,000 cubic yards in 1907, an incredible 37,000,000 cubic yards in 1908 - but such figures were really beyond comprehension.  What was 1,000,000 cubic yards of dirt?  In weight?  In volume?  In effort?... A train of dirt cars carrying the total excavation at Panama would circle the world four times at the equator. 

Circle the world at the equator four times?  How do you comprehend that? 

Here’s another excerpt: 

Construction of the canal would consume more than 61,000,000 pounds of dynamite, a greater amount of explosive energy than had been expended in all the nation's wars until that time. 

Talk about reallocating the collective technology of the time for the benefit of building the Panama Canal.  Using dynamite for good instead of war and the destruction of mankind?  (Short-lived unfortunately, as WWI started soon after the canal opened).  

What do you suppose the country’s military defense budget was a century ago?  How much of that was diverted to building a canal?  Yes, the world was quite different back then.  And I agree that our modern military-industrial-complex overcomes the impossible all the time.  I cite one of their motto’s often:

The difficult we do immediately.  The impossible takes a little longer.                             

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers 

Imagine the application of our determination: 

Its costs had been enormous.  No single construction effort in American history had exacted such a price in dollars or in human life. 

David McCullough 

He was referencing American history.  Ancient historians did not record the construction costs of building the pyramids.  Of course, there’s more to our world than construction projects and war. 

So here’s to us; all of us; everyone, every day who face seemingly insurmountable odds but refuse to turn back.  Here’s to all who decide - it’s not “impossible”. 

                                                            GAP 

When life gets tough we could get a helmet… or… we could leverage the peace and share the power of a positive perspective.