"It Always Seems Impossible Until It's Done.": ...
Indeed what is there that does not appear marvellous, when it comes to our knowledge for the first time? How many things, too, are looked upon as quite impossible, until they have been actually effected?
"It Always Seems Impossible Until It's Done.": ...
"I've missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed." --Michael Jordan "Go for it, baby! Life ain't no dress rehearsal." --Tallulah Bankhead "Perfection is like chasing the horizon. Keep moving." --Neil Gaiman "If you aren't in over your head, how do you know how tall you are?" --T. S. Eliot "It always seems impossible until it's done." --Nelson Mandela
"It always seems impossible until it's done," is attributed to Nelson Mandela. A man who was unjustly imprisoned for twenty-seven years and who was the spiritual leader of the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa. For context, apartheid was a horrific system of legalized segregation (officially beginning in 1948, though technically it traces its origins back to 1795 and British colonialists) in South Africa where blacks and people of color were treated as sub-human and forced from their homes into segregated slums and ghettos.
Or you hope it will it will make a difference. Because I'll be honest, it's been rough. The post-coup regime is still in power in Honduras and committing vast human rights abuses, and the United States is still sending tens of millions of dollars in police and military aid to support it. It seems impossible to move the Department of State....and it's emotionally brutal to keep banging my head against it, day after day, month after month, year after year.
And now, to those wonderful students themselves, let me say, I'm sure it seemed impossible for you, too--that you would pass all those finals, buy all those books, file all the forms, and even make it here to this ceremony on time. And I know it's scary out there beyond the university. The economy is a disaster, and you're thinking, please, please, just give me that job at Starbucks. And then there's climate change! The landscape is burning, the seas are engulfing the coasts, and the ice is melting out from under the polar bears. Let's not pretend it's not going to be a LITTLE challenging. 041b061a72