At some point in our lives, most of us have either said or been told “If I can do it anyone can” and I’m here to tell you why that can be an incredibly harmful statement.
I get it, people want to be an inspiration or be inspired. But, in my opinion, it’s just another level of everyone’s favorite game of “who has it worse.” Don’t you hate that? You have a rough day and you’re venting to a group of friends and one of them says, “You think you’ve had a rough day? Let me tell you about my morning!” And then it becomes some dick-measuring contest of whose day was worse when you started the conversation by just wanting to rant about some asshole at the 7-11.
All of our lives are so different. The choices we’ve made, the people we grew up with, our socioeconomic class, our genes, injuries, traumas, successes, achievements, talents, everything. So how could one single person think that their life experience is the end-all-be-all of experiences to the point that if they managed to accomplish a difficult task, anyone else could also? It’s absurd if you think about it logically. And then creates self-doubt in people who have yet to accomplish the thing – What’s wrong with them? Why can’t they do the task so-and-so managed to do?
Let’s look at a common scenario. Like many others, I struggle with depression. I have since I was 8 years old and had a conversation with my mom wherein I told her, in the only way I knew how, I didn’t think I felt what I was supposed to and how I mimicked how others acted (like if something happened and people around me responded joyously, I’d mimic this behavior). Later in life, I would experience other factors that contributed to this, like medical issues and abandonment. But I simply have a chemical imbalance that is separate from external stimuli. I still struggle with it. I have days I don’t want to get up, sometimes I go weeks to months in a reclusive state and don’t talk to anyone. But I also have a superhero complex, and my terminally ill partner needs me to care for him. So I force myself to get up, I switch into autopilot, and I accomplish my tasks on a strict schedule I’ve set up exactly for this reason. I have to get up.
So when I associate with people who are actively going through a period of depression and are struggling to get up, surely, all I have to do is say “If I can do it you can, too” to inspire them, right?! Wrong. What gives me the right to compare my experiences to theirs? We’re not the same person. I force myself to get up because I have to and while a superhero complex is often viewed as a negative thing, it aids me in my resolve to “do the thing.” And the thing is, there are parts of my life that are objectively bleak, like caring for my dying loved one. So to tell someone struggling with depression I’m still doing the things, it could contribute to a common worthlessness spiral since they, at that moment, can’t do the thing. They do need to figure out how to do the thing, but that will require them to discover it on their own and in a genuine way that is true for them and their life.
No matter what the subject is… mental well-being, paying off student loans, buying a house in this market, losing weight, raising a kid, applying the perfect smokey-eye, or math homework… by telling someone “If I can do it anyone can” you’re essentially saying that your experiences up until that point have made the subject more difficult for you than anyone else. Even if your intentions are good and you just want to inspire people, you have no idea what another person has been through that makes it difficult. Your inspiration likely makes people feel worse because they still haven’t accomplished the task by perpetuating a feeling of worthlessness and inability.
“If I can do it anyone can” is an unrealistic and absurd statement. It’s dripping with superiority and narcissism. That anyone could think their situation was just so and they should be an inspiration to anyone whose situation even slightly resembles theirs is sanctimonious and deluded. Even if you grew up impoverished or experienced something in life that was objectively terrible or put you back, that still doesn’t make your experience universally relatable or mean you are the pinnacle of success from lesser means. What gives someone the right to even suggest such a thing?
I also realize I am jaded when it comes to such inspirations and even inspiration in general. As a disabled person with a disabled partner who works with people who are disabled, you start having a visceral reaction to the word “inspiration” altogether. Everyone wants to look at you as an inspiration and it gets tiring; and honestly, somewhat insulting. Stella Young has a wonderful TED talk called “I’m not your inspiration, thank you very much” (transcript available) I encourage everyone to give a listen to before suggesting someone in your life is an inspiration due to a disability. But I digress.
There’s an old adage I love while learning to be humble “Once you tell someone you’re humble, you have to start over” (I tried Googling the source but couldn’t find it). And I wonder if something like that applies to inspirational people. It’s one thing to be an inspiration to the people around you who’ve witnessed your accomplishments despite the odds. It’s even different when someone else says or thinks “If they can do it, I can” because they decided to take inspiration from you. But once you’ve said something like “If I can do it anyone can” and essentially claiming yourself to be an inspiration, does it diminish your inspiring qualities? Maybe, maybe not. But either way, just because you think you’re an inspiration, doesn’t make you one.
It’s also a form of ableism. More often than not (in my experience), these statements are often said by able-bodied, neurotypical people. So how can they claim to be a universal inspiration when 25% of the American population has a disability? And in cases of cis, white men (you know, those Chads who have programs on how to be an alpha male), how can someone claim to be an inspiration when they’ve never been the victim of discrimination due to race, gender, or sexuality? There’s nothing wrong with being a cis white man — but you can’t assume you’ve been through it all when it’s a statistical improbability.
Regardless of intentions, I encourage anyone who thinks “If I can do it anyone can” to take a step back and think about why. Think about how you got to that position and recognize aspects that may not be universal. Did you get help from a person who changed your life? I mean, I’m OK now but I was homeless for a bit in my 20s and it sucked, then someone I barely knew basically adopted me (she’s now my best friend). So yeah, that was a rough time, but I was saved by someone. I didn’t do that myself and I can’t assume everyone has a person like that in their life. We also can’t disregard sheer dumb luck — being in the right place at the right time which is completely random. So before you start suggesting that you’re the end-all-be-all of difficult situations, really think about how that comes off and who you could be negatively impacting.
Honestly, whether it negatively impacted anyone within earshot of someone saying “If I can do it anyone can,” it still just makes them sound like an ass.