You can do it...

[McDreidel09]

if you REALLY wanted to.

I hate when people say this when it pertains to something I CAN'T do.

For example: mental math. I cannot for the life of me, do mental math. I have to write the problem down and count with my fingers with the simplest problem. It's not that I wasn't taught how to. I was. It's not that I always used a calculator. I couldn't start using a calculator until 7th grade.

I couldn't do it if I WANTED to. There are many situations in which I wish I could, in which I want to have this ability (like when I'm at work and I mess up), but I CAN'T.

It's mainly the math people who say this. This attitude pisses me off. It's not that I can do it if I wanted to, it's that you can't fathom that someone can't do it because you are good at math.

Sometimes, as a fast reader, I can't imagine that people read so slowly. However, I do remember that not everybody can do the same thing as me.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

Um, did I get drunk and write the above post, sign her name to it, and now I don't remember?

In fact, want to know what the one thing that you can say that will move a dyscalculic to murder?

It's not "you're stupid" or "you're lazy" or any of that, although those definately get honorable mentions.

It's "you could do it if you tried harder."

Okay, everyone who has ever said that to me? Fuck you. Fuck you till you go blind and all your hair falls off. With Flava Flav's dick.

[LadyBarbossa]

I'm so with you on the math thing. I shed many, many tears and had lots of frustration with high school math in particular, and probably wouldn't have been able to finish if my brother in law hadn't stepped in via internet and helped me out. I'm sure I could probably improve slightly if I took remedial classes, but math is definitely not my forte, and I was highly flattered when my Phlebotomy instructor suggested I go on to study Nuclear Medicine because my grades impressed her. Only there wasn't much math involved in the phlebo class. Me? Take Physics? When hell freezes over, lol.

But yeah, when I get impatient with people who have to pause the TV to read subtitles, or take three to five times as long as me reading something, I have to remind myself I'm just as slow and/or inept at math.

[Nyoibo]

"If I threw you out of a 10 story window, you think the reason you'll hit the ground and die is because you didn't try flying hard enough?"

[RecoveringKinkoid]

"If I threw you out of a 10 story window, you think the reason you'll hit the ground and die is because you didn't try flying hard enough?"


I heart you right now for saying this. :D This is brilliant.

[jackfaire]

"If I threw you out of a 10 story window, you think the reason you'll hit the ground and die is because you didn't try flying hard enough?"

Nope because I didn't try to miss the ground hard enough. :D

[RootedPhoenix]

"If I threw you out of a 10 story window, you think the reason you'll hit the ground and die is because you didn't try flying hard enough?"

I heart you right now for saying this. :D This is brilliant.

Me too.

I hate it when people do the equivalent of asking me to fly by just wanting to. I'm not "selling myself short" or some other rubbish, I can't do it, you moron! It's called knowing yourself.

I can't just wish my mental disabilities away. I'm glad that other people's attention spans are made of awesome. Mine isn't, and it's not because I haven't tried to make it work.

People will suggest a job I know I'm not suited for and they get all upset because apparently it was such a great idea, and if I'd only try harder, I'd find that I could do it. Or that I was trying to be too picky, or selling myself short..or whatever harebrained reason they pulled from the recesses of their brains that day. I'm capable of a great many things, but when a job's basic duties are doing things I can't do, or using mental processes that aren't reliable, it's a Bad Idea (tm).

My aunt and my grandmother are awful about this. They don't waaaaant me to be in music, because an office job is more reliiiiiiable and easy to obtaaaaain...whine whimper worry whine moan complain.

Never mind the fact that would be a horrid office person (and thus keeping such a job would be a huge deal, if it were even possible).....or that I have lots of skills in music....or that music is my first love and my passion.... *pulls out hair*

However, the line of thinking that really makes me go thermonuclear is the idea that if it's easy for them, it should be easy for you! Some dude once said (paraphrasing here) "You can just walk 4 or 5 miles, can't you?". (The tone was such that he made it sound like I was just being lazy or something.) My response was to tell him about the impact that my leg injuries have had on my ability to do any such thing. (Even at the best I've ever been, I think a mile was my limit. My legs are bad.)

I realize that many healthy people can do this, and think nothing of it, but to assume that someone can just because the lion's share of everyone my age can is just.....absurd. Worse is to automatically assume laziness.

People like this really bother me.

[Stormraven]

I came within a hair's breadth of failing Algebra three times. I love math, but I clearly could not learn Algebra. Not in school, anyway.

I also can't draw - literally can't. I've tried. Even my tracings look horrid. There are, in fact, many things I can't do. I'm right there with y'all.

[jackfaire]

My whole life I have been ADD and I have always been told, "You can just focus harder"

Grrrr no I can't I get distracted by every freaking thing.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

One of the worst fights I had with my husband one night was when I was woken up by a dripping gutter and his advice was to just tune it out.

Really, asshole? Tune out the thing that woke me from a sound sleep? I don't know what is more of a "tune out" state of mind than unconsiousness.

Wrong thing to frigging say.

"focus harder." Yeah. How about this? Eat me.

[jackfaire]

I am lucky I do the work I do in call center your talking typing etc and the multitasking keeps me from getting distracted most times.

[Shangri-laschild]

Yeah, I get the "if you want it bad enough, you'll make it happen" version. I hate that because that doesn't work for me. Normal reward systems for goal have never seemed to work for me. Like, "just do one more hour of work and then you can have a break." Nope. My mind just goes straight to the break. It's something I'm trying to work with and sometimes around, but it's tricky. I recently found out it probably has something to do with my ADD and that that's how a lot of people with ADD are wired. Being able to finally put the feeling into words of why I had trouble getting stuff done just because I really wanted it was nice. And it shut up some of the comments :) Still need to figure out good ways to work with the problem but yeah, wanting something enough or trying hard enough does not always equal success.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

Drink coffee. It helps you focus. (It's a stimulant...for everyone else...just like Ritalin.)

Also, keep something else going on in the background...for instance if I am doing something that does not keep my full attention on the computer...coloring or something tedious...play you tube in the background.
If I am stripping wallpaper or ironing, a movie goes on.


Make sure no part of your attention span is left with nothing to keep it occupied. If yoiu don't, that part of your attention span will go off on it's own and get into trouble.

[Fryk]

GAH! I got this every year in school, from 8th grade onward. Every year, I would BARELY pass whatever high level math they put me in, and I knew I wasn't doing well. I begged my advisors to let me repeat, but they kept telling me, "Give it a try. If you work hard enough, you can do it!" So onward I would go, stumbling all the way.

Yeah, if you put enough energy into it, you can achieve the speed of light, too. It's just too bad that "enough energy" in this case would be infinity! Is that what you'll tell space explorers, too?
Do you yell at quadraplegics and tell them to get their lazy asses up and RUN THAT DECATHLON!!?

Wanting it is NOT ENOUGH!

[Rageaholic]

I have to bump this because I hate this too. It's assuming to know more about myself than I do.

I had an elementary teacher who would say "there's no such word as can't". Oh really? You just said it, you dumb bitch, any dictionary would disagree with you.

When I'm willing to accept that I cannot do something, I shouldn't have to say that I can't until I'm blue in the face. Either give me the answer yourself, or mark me down. Don't make me do something that I obviously cannot do.

[telecom_goddess]

I gotta say I am the same way as a lot of you.....I am NOT good at math and have to write things out to figure out the answer. In high school they tried to put me in the 1 year algebra program, dropped to 2 year...and ended up in consumer math, which is basically how to balance your checkbook :p. Funny thing is that was the math that got me through life!

However I am a fast reader and it bugs me when people take forever to read something. And the lack of spelling, grammar, and punctuation skills is gonna drive me up the wall! :mad:

[DrFaroohk]

Math is my enemy. I'm good with basic addition and stuff, but anything beyond that....geometry? Calculus? fuck off. I was always a "why" type of person. 2+2 is 4? Why? Just telling me that PiRSquared is the area of the hypontenuse of the radius dimension doesn't work. I gotta know WHY. WHY do these numbers relate the way they do?

lol "You can do anything if you put your mind to it!" Yeah. I will NEVER be President of the US. There is no fucking way. Nor will I ever be able to sing like Freddie Mercury. Not gonna happen. And those stupid sayings I think are sort of poisoning kids minds and deluding them into thinking they can really do anything, and no they can't. NO WE CAN'T!!!!!!

[powerboy]

I am also not good in math. I can add, I can subtract and also multiply. But everything else, I need it wrote down.

I do hate that when someone tells you that you can do it. Umm no I cannot. So stop pushing.

[BlaqueKatt]

I had an elementary teacher who would say "there's no such word as can't". Oh really? You just said it, you dumb bitch, any dictionary would disagree with you.

never join the military they have a phrase that's even worse.....I heard it many times......

"can't means don't want to"

oh yeah MR drill Sargent-give birth

[Hobbs]

Math is my enemy. I'm good with basic addition and stuff, but anything beyond that....geometry? Calculus? fuck off. I was always a "why" type of person. 2+2 is 4? Why? Just telling me that PiRSquared is the area of the hypontenuse of the radius dimension doesn't work. I gotta know WHY. WHY do these numbers relate the way they do?

lol "You can do anything if you put your mind to it!" Yeah. I will NEVER be President of the US. There is no fucking way. Nor will I ever be able to sing like Freddie Mercury. Not gonna happen. And those stupid sayings I think are sort of poisoning kids minds and deluding them into thinking they can really do anything, and no they can't. NO WE CAN'T!!!!!!
Just because you can't shouldn't be your reason for dragging innocent kids with you.

[Wingates_Hellsing]

The point of the saying is that many seemingly insurmountable obstacles can be overcome if you actually try. Many times people are only unable to do something because they've convinced themselves that they can't. Granted, it's become over-used and it is a bit hyperbolic, but the core sentiment does hold water.

Defeatism is a big problem for a lot of people. And while most everyone in this thread (or the forum come to think of it) intellectually know their limits, people have become used to those around them simply being defeatist more often than not.