It’s 46°F in Minneapolis today. I’m wearing short sleeves. I went to Borders over lunch, and on the way back to work I actually turned on the air conditioning in the car. And then the thought occurred to me:
46°F is really not all that warm.
However, this is Minnesota; and even though it hasn’t been an especially cold winter (for Minnesota, anyway), it’s stayed fairly cold for quite awhile. All the lakes are still frozen. The side effect of this is that you become acclimatized to this, and then as long as it’s more than 10, it’s "not that cold" — if it’s over 32 it’s "nice out", and if it gets to 40, well, boy: it’s warm.
Reminded me of the old story, a staple of preachers and motivational speakers, about how frogs will allow themselves to be boiled to death without hopping out of the water, as long as the water is heated gradually. They become acclimatized to the current temperature, and incremental changes do not alarm them, and they don’t hop out.
Made me think (and I’m not trying to sound like a motivational guru, here, but take it any way you like) — could it be that in life, we just become acclimatized to our state, and don’t even bother trying to move on, or to increase? Could it be that we just get used to failure, or poverty, or "just getting by" — and never even consider that it could change?
I’m not going to offer a six step plan to success, or try to come to any hard and fast conclusions about things based on this observation, except to ask the question: could it be — is it possible — that one main reason most people don’t experience the sort of success they’d like is simply that they don’t think it’s possible?
Paul Arden says "Most successful people are not notably more talented, smarter, or better looking. They become rich and powerful because they want to become rich and powerful."
Hmm.
