When we first met, my lovely wife said something that stuck with me. Young as she was, she had the insight that we humans think we know who we are with surety until we discover a limitation or ability we hadn’t thought we had. Her expression was, “You don’t know who you are until you are.”
Recently, someone close to me told me a story that reflects the positive side of that expression.
Working out in a gym with a goal to increase strength, the person said, “I’ve recently been able to lift 385 pounds for a set of three deadlifts. Today, when I went to the gym, I saw new weights that I loaded onto the barbell, not realizing that the weights were heavier than I formerly used. When I had the weights loaded, I struggled to lift the bar. Wondering why I was weaker, I told myself to try harder, enabling me to lift the bar not once, but in three sets of one. And then I discovered I had loaded the barbell with 420 pounds, not my usual 385. I had unknowingly lifted 35 more pounds! And I did it three times. When I realized what I had accomplished, I reloaded the barbell with my former maximum and proceeded to lift it for a set of five, exceeding my previous record. I didn’t know I could lift 420 until I lifted it.”
The Corollary
My wife’s expression “You don’t know who you are until you are” has a corollary: “You don’t know what you can do until you do it.”
The expression has a sweeping inclusiveness, also. In 1954 Roger Bannister, a young neurologist, having run a 1500-meter race to set a British record, decided to attempt a mile run under the long-thought human barrier of four minutes. In May that year he ran the mile in 3 minutes, 59.4 seconds. His feat, once thought impossible, was repeated by a different runner just 45 days later. As of this writing, the record time for the mile is 3:43.13, held by Hicham El Guerrouj of Morocco. Bannister’s record has now been beaten by high school runner Gary Martin of Pennsylvania (3:57.98) and more than twenty other high school students. It seems that we humans, saddled with negative beliefs about our abilities, achieve what was once thought impossible after someone surpasses previous limitations. As a species, we don’t know who we are until we are.
And there are plenty of examples in heroic people. Four decades ago, Kansas City Chiefs’ running back Joe Delaney jumped into a Louisiana pond to save three boys. He saved one before succumbing to the water. Joe Delaney, rookie Pro Bowler, did not know how to swim. At 24, and maybe because he had three children, he did what he probably never expected to do, enter a deep pond. Stories like Delaney’s appear every so often, as a passerby, for example, saves someone from a burning car or house. And, of course, there are those many examples of heroic first responders rushing into the Twin Towers on September 11.
But there are also, unfortunately, negative manifestations of her expression. Road rage and domestic violence incidents provide examples.
Retrospect makes absolutes foolish and sometimes embarrassing, particularly when we proclaim what we will do should something happen only to find ourselves unwilling to carry out our declaration, promise, or threat. The world unfolds through action. We look at the past and the present to see realities we once only surmised.
Thanks, Donna, for the insight.
Recently, someone close to me told me a story that reflects the positive side of that expression.
Working out in a gym with a goal to increase strength, the person said, “I’ve recently been able to lift 385 pounds for a set of three deadlifts. Today, when I went to the gym, I saw new weights that I loaded onto the barbell, not realizing that the weights were heavier than I formerly used. When I had the weights loaded, I struggled to lift the bar. Wondering why I was weaker, I told myself to try harder, enabling me to lift the bar not once, but in three sets of one. And then I discovered I had loaded the barbell with 420 pounds, not my usual 385. I had unknowingly lifted 35 more pounds! And I did it three times. When I realized what I had accomplished, I reloaded the barbell with my former maximum and proceeded to lift it for a set of five, exceeding my previous record. I didn’t know I could lift 420 until I lifted it.”
The Corollary
My wife’s expression “You don’t know who you are until you are” has a corollary: “You don’t know what you can do until you do it.”
The expression has a sweeping inclusiveness, also. In 1954 Roger Bannister, a young neurologist, having run a 1500-meter race to set a British record, decided to attempt a mile run under the long-thought human barrier of four minutes. In May that year he ran the mile in 3 minutes, 59.4 seconds. His feat, once thought impossible, was repeated by a different runner just 45 days later. As of this writing, the record time for the mile is 3:43.13, held by Hicham El Guerrouj of Morocco. Bannister’s record has now been beaten by high school runner Gary Martin of Pennsylvania (3:57.98) and more than twenty other high school students. It seems that we humans, saddled with negative beliefs about our abilities, achieve what was once thought impossible after someone surpasses previous limitations. As a species, we don’t know who we are until we are.
And there are plenty of examples in heroic people. Four decades ago, Kansas City Chiefs’ running back Joe Delaney jumped into a Louisiana pond to save three boys. He saved one before succumbing to the water. Joe Delaney, rookie Pro Bowler, did not know how to swim. At 24, and maybe because he had three children, he did what he probably never expected to do, enter a deep pond. Stories like Delaney’s appear every so often, as a passerby, for example, saves someone from a burning car or house. And, of course, there are those many examples of heroic first responders rushing into the Twin Towers on September 11.
But there are also, unfortunately, negative manifestations of her expression. Road rage and domestic violence incidents provide examples.
Retrospect makes absolutes foolish and sometimes embarrassing, particularly when we proclaim what we will do should something happen only to find ourselves unwilling to carry out our declaration, promise, or threat. The world unfolds through action. We look at the past and the present to see realities we once only surmised.
Thanks, Donna, for the insight.
RSS Feed