I don't think the author proves his thesis at all. All he ahows is that being whatever you want to be is going to take effort -- you're going to have to put your heart into it. It's not just a matter of sitting around and waiting for it. Did anyone really think it was? Is anyone really saying, "You can be anything you want to be -- just sit around and wait for it to show up"?
If so, that certainly would be a lie, but that's not the message I hear being said and it's certainly not the message I like to send.
If your dream is, to take a recently topical example, to compete in the Olympics, do you really think you can get there just by sitting in front of the TV thinking "I want to be in the Olympics"? Yeah, you might wind up in the Olympics as an usher :-) But if you want to compete as an athlete, you're going to have to work your ass off. Is there really anyone who doesn't know this???
Or, let's take the teacher example. If you dream of being a great teacher who truly inspires students to learn, you can absolutely have that. Maybe it will take the usual form of teaching in a school, or maybe you'll do something different, like Sal Khan. Either way, if you aspire to be a great teacher and you do the work required to become that, you will be able to do that and get paid for it somehow. There may be too many ordinary teachers, but there are never enough great ones.
That's true in any area.
On the other hand, if all you aspire to is mediocrity, that's not a passion -- it's the absence of a passion. If the only thoughts you have about what you want to be are, "yeah, it would be nice to be X", then I absolutely agree with the author: you're unlikely to get that. But it doesn't mean you can't; it just means you won't.
Most people can never compete in the Olympics. Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt have physical characteristics that you and I do not have. For most Olympic sports this is the case.
Why pretend otherwise? Acknowledging it doesn't mean you and I can't do great things in life. It just means there are particular great things that we will never be able to do, and should not waste our time trying to do.
Have you seen that guy competing with prosthetic legs? He completely blows your argument. He is at the bottom of the scale on "phisically disadvantaged".
Olympic athletes are not super heros. There are the exceptions, but 95% of them are "normal" people who just work really hard. Maybe you can't be the greatest sprinter ever (who knows?) but you could make it to the olympics. The brazilian judo gold winner was just a very poor girl with a wish 4 years ago.
That is a totally spurious argument for a number of reasons. 1) Pistorious is genetically predisposed, regardless, from the knees up, to a higher than average level of fitness, muscle density, metabolic efficiency, etc (all successful athletes are almost by definition, since to be successful, you have to compete with people who do have all the genetic advantages AND the will to win, either alone is not enough) 2) he actually has an advantage over "able-bodied" athletes in that if he twists his ankle he doesn't need to take 6 weeks off training to heal, he just swaps in a new one.
What Pistorius has done is redefine what disabled means. He's not actually disabled at all, he's superhuman, quite literally a cyborg. For the Olympics they slowed him down by reducing the springiness of his, err, springs, so the poor humans could keep up.
As for the others, you could train as hard as Phelps but guess what, it wasn't training that gave him his flipper-like feet or his extraordinary armspan.
I don't want to get in that discussion, the point is the guy had no legs, yet he just competed in the olympics. He was clearly in your "can't do it" group.
And forget Phelps, Bolt, etc. They are one in a billion, and the greatest athletes of all time in their field. What about the other 99%? What's the excuse for them?
> Is anyone really saying, "You can be anything you want to be -- just sit around and wait for it to show up"?
No, but I've met plenty that equate college degree in field that sounds interesting = qualified individual, good job. I used to be one of them. Only with experience do I realize how silly that was. I've also met plenty of friends / people who sling this around: "I got a CS degree; I wanted a programming job but no one would give me one. So now I do X." Many people dont want to seek out problems to solve, they just want checklists placed into their hands; when they don't get one, they falter. That is, imho, why the medical profession is so competitive - get into medical school, and you will be a 6-figure fully employed Physician. Just complete the curriculum.
idk, maybe education can't be entirely (or mostly) separated from on-the-job experience. Shadowing, Internships, etc. should (perhaps) be required for degrees in the first place?
If so, that certainly would be a lie, but that's not the message I hear being said and it's certainly not the message I like to send.
If your dream is, to take a recently topical example, to compete in the Olympics, do you really think you can get there just by sitting in front of the TV thinking "I want to be in the Olympics"? Yeah, you might wind up in the Olympics as an usher :-) But if you want to compete as an athlete, you're going to have to work your ass off. Is there really anyone who doesn't know this???
Or, let's take the teacher example. If you dream of being a great teacher who truly inspires students to learn, you can absolutely have that. Maybe it will take the usual form of teaching in a school, or maybe you'll do something different, like Sal Khan. Either way, if you aspire to be a great teacher and you do the work required to become that, you will be able to do that and get paid for it somehow. There may be too many ordinary teachers, but there are never enough great ones.
That's true in any area.
On the other hand, if all you aspire to is mediocrity, that's not a passion -- it's the absence of a passion. If the only thoughts you have about what you want to be are, "yeah, it would be nice to be X", then I absolutely agree with the author: you're unlikely to get that. But it doesn't mean you can't; it just means you won't.