This week’s quote is by Saint Francis of Assisi:
“Start by doing what’s necessary;
then do what’s possible;
and suddenly you are doing the impossible“
“Start by doing what’s necessary;
then do what’s possible;
and suddenly you are doing the impossible“
That’s a great quote by St. Francis. I chose this quote for a couple of reasons: First, Francis of Assisi is known as the patron saint of animals, and since this week’s doodle was a great white shark, I thought it was fitting. Second, the quote talks about doing the impossible, which in order to generate major change is what we need to do.
While I was drawing the cartoon shark, I mentioned that sharks are a keystone species. A keystone in architecture was a stone or brick that was placed at the top of an arch, and if removed, the whole structure would come crumbling down. In a similar way, a keystone species is a species that if removed would bring down an entire ecosystem.
Sharks are a keystone species. We can’t do without them. Unfortunately humans are fishing sharks in huge numbers because of their fins. And since a lot of people still see sharks as dangerous animals they don’t pay enough attention or simply don’t care. But we should care.
Sharks are more beneficial to us than they are dangerous. They keep their ecosystems in check by keeping populations of smaller fish in check. If they weren’t there, these fish would wreak havoc in the oceans. In their absence the oceans would suffer, and so would we. Sharks are on the top of their food chain. They keep the populations of fish healthy by getting rid of the sick and weak fish. They also clean the ocean by eating the dead and dying fish. They do all this and so much more!
Humans, on the other hand, have an astonishingly amazing track record of messing up anything related to mother nature. We are horrible! We’ve been doing it for thousands of years, and if we keep it up we’re going to break the whole thing! This is our planet, and if we all do something about our environment, we could bring forth some much needed change in the world.
Humans, unlike other animals, weren’t designed to fly or breathe underwater. Doing any of those things would by definition be impossible for us …
It sounds impossible, but if we are to believe St. Francis, we may find ourselves doing it.
Francis of Assisi talks about doing the impossible. Humans, unlike other animals, weren’t designed to fly or breathe underwater. Doing any of those things would by definition be impossible for us; however millions of people around the globe jump on an airplane and fly every year. There are others who put their SCUBA gear and witness the breathtaking beauty of our underwater landscapes.
These 2 inventions and thousands of others have redefined what the word “impossible” meant. If you were able to travel back in time 2,000 years, and ask around if they thought humans would ever be able to breathe underwater, talk to their friends in a different country while at the same time looking at their faces or take a stroll on the moon; they would say you’re nuts. That, in their minds, would be impossible! In that sense, you realize that sometimes impossible simply means lacking the knowledge or skill to do something.
Sometimes we call difficult things, or things we don’t know how to do “impossible”. What Assisi tells us is that if we begin by doing what we need, and then move to what we can, soon we’ll find ourselves doing things that we thought we couldn’t do. It is by doing that we acquire the skills, knowledge and experience. There is a progression that Assisi refers to, but it begins with taking an action.
