I heard an interesting comparison of the words "can't" and "didn't" today. The context is Dwight Peterson speaking to a group of students at Teen Leadership Conference at BBC this year and I thought I'd share the gist of his thoughts.
"Can't," he explained, is a hopeless word. There is no chance for some thing, whatever it is, to happen. There is no hope of the goal being obtained, nothing to look forward to but failure.
"Didn't" at first sounds very negative. It sounds like a past failure to act, but it is a word that is actually full of hope. "Didn't," but "can." Here there is a chance that whatever it is, it can be done. Whatever it might be, it could happen, it could still be accomplished. Maybe it wasn't, maybe there was a missed opportunity and a past failure, but "didn't" points to the possibility of a future success.
Ponder that next time you're tempted to say that you "can't."
Labels: reflections