don's report archive

Wellness in the Headlines
(Don's Report to the World)

"I Can't Do It!" -- Not At All Gloom and Doom
Thursday October 20, 2005

While I have discussed my newfound sense of "I Can't Do It" (henceforth "ICDI") previously at this site, it took me a while to integrate the concept with the larger framework of a wellness mindset. Working with Grant Donovan of Australia and mulling and brooding on the issues for several months since the early sketch essays on ICDI, the time has come to more fully describe ICDI thinking. I believe such a concept is a key to success at shaping and sustaining a wellness philosophy in all areas of life, particularly physical and mental well-being, career and relationship effectiveness, happiness and drug-free emotional stability. The previous post that appeared here during the last few days can be viewed as the "official start" of a series of ICDI essays. These essays will attempt to demonstrate how an ICDI perspective on wellness can help you gain the most satisfaction from the lifestyle you create.

To review the introductory essay, I suggested the reality for most is "I Can't Do It" (or ICDI). Thinking and expecting otherwise probably accounts for much of the pain and disappointment in the world today, along with the sorry effects of toxic religious dogmas. Most people simply can't get their needs met, can't find sufficient happiness, can't make the pain go away, can't succeed, can't perform and so on. ICDI describes how things really are as well as how ICDI perspectives offer better outcomes.

Is ICDI a gloom and doom message? While it might at first appear as such, it is not. It is, instead, a call for lowering expectations to accord with realities that can't be changed. The purpose of ICDI thinking, besides urging acceptance of limits, is to support LESS disappointment, stress, failure, heartbreak and other forms of negativity. By reducing setbacks and miseries associated with futile goals and overarching ambitions, there comes the possibility of modest but plentiful little pleasures and successes. Thus, ICDI is, like the larger wellness philosophy that encompasses it, a positive outlook. It offers the prospects of sensible optimism, practical expectations and the development of a conscious focus on realistic meanings and purposes.

Most people will sense the validity of an ICDI perspective, while initially resisting it. We have all grown up with "you CAN do it messages." ICDI might seem unacceptable, at odds with the Horatio Alger, Tony Robbins--style "you can do whatever you set your mind to do" thinking. (The latter, however, requires attendance at expensive confidence-building seminars as well as the purchase of tapes and books.) Hope has been sold as a way to shut out all manner of unpleasantries, such as otherwise obvious barriers (size, talent, intelligence, socialization) to desired states of one kind or another. For instance, kids in America are often told anybody can grow up to be president. That isn't so--very few have any hope whatsoever of election to any office, let alone one that requires hundreds of millions of dollars to seek. (What's more, some who by the lottery of birth and improbably favorable circumstances DO become president occasionally turn out to be ruinous for the country and the rest of the world. This causes hundreds of millions of folks to deeply regret that such children were told they could be president someday. But then, I digress--this essay is NOT about George Bush!)

The reality of ICDI is supported by many kinds of obvious evidence right before our eyes. Consider that our thoughts are limited by our experiences. The experiences of so many, therefore, are going to limit the quality of their thoughts. One of many reasons that ICDI applies is that most humans have had woeful experiences relative to education. The world of 2005 is extraordinarily sophisticated. Science has reached levels of understanding that would seem unimaginable to the finest minds of even recent generations. Yet, most humans living today do not understand, appreciate, or even concur with some elementary aspects of modern science. Even in America, thought by some (mostly flag-waving Americans) to be a world leader in varied aspects of modernity, an appalling record of documented ignorance of reality underscores ICDI. If you doubt this for a minute, consider the following: "More than a third of Americans believe Noah took dinosaurs on the Ark, that the earth is only 6,000 years old and they ain't kin to no monkey." (Source: Columnist Diane Roberts, "Republicans Are In Tumult and the Democrats Are In Hiding," St. Petersburg Times, 10/15/05, p. 16A.) Furthermore, polls show that one adult American in five thinks the Sun revolves around the Earth, an idea that held sway up to the 17th century.

As in these first essays on ICDI as a key to wellness, the secret of success is low expectations.

Be well. Always look on the bright side of life.

(Note: This essay will be filed in the archives in the MEANING DOMAIN under the skill area of applied wellness. Additional articles related to this theme may be found there.)

(Ed. Note: Views expressed in this and other columns are those of the author and not necessarily those of the SeekWellness Editorial Board.)

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