Think Possibilities

By Dr. Ron Ross

Born in Ireland in 1884, child prodigy William Thomson was enrolled in Glasgow University at age ten. He became an accomplished mathematician, astronomer, chemist, and physicist who made a significant contribution to the laying of the transatlantic cable in 1858. His distinguished scientific career was confirmed when he was elected to the Royal Society where he served as its president. He was also known of as the First Baron Kelvin of Largs.

William Thomson or Lord Kelvin, whichever you want to call him, wrote over 600 papers on a variety of scientific subjects. But as smart as he was, there is at least one thing Lord Kelvin said that I’m certain he would take back if he could. This outstanding, well-educated scientist, mathematician, astronomer, chemist, and physicist declared, “Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.” He was convinced that the only way man could ever fly was in hot-air balloons.

Evidently the Wright Brothers never read much of Lord Kelvin’s stuff, especially his expert scientific opinion on heavier-than-air flying machines. On December 14, 1903, four years before Lord Kelvin died, Wilbur and Orville settled his “impossible” claim when they flew the Wright Flyer for 52 seconds covering 852 feet. On a short field in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina a couple of bicycle shop owners did what trained scientists said was impossible!

Lord Kelvin was neither the first nor the last really smart person to use that nasty word “impossible”. You must be careful of it for it sneaks easily and quickly into your daily conversation. And every time it is used it dashes the daring dreams of idealists, inventors, visionaries, and people just like you. Every time it is used it shuts down creativity, stifles inventiveness, and suffocates the imagination.

Like Orville and Wilbur, there are many things that you can accomplish if you don’t consider them impossible. The dreams you have are worth pursuing. The problems you face have a solution. The pain you are in has a relief. The life you are living can be changed for the better. There is no such thing as an impossible situation or an unsolvable problem. There is no reason for you or me or anyone else to be perpetually stuck in the mud.

But to get unstuck, you must delete the word “impossible” from your vocabulary and start to think “possibilities”. When you do you will open up dynamic creative forces within your own mind, you will find unique, previously un-seen solutions to your problems, your will get relief from your pain, you will find hope for your future.

Think possibilities and you make failure the only impossibility.

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