Douglas Adams, who did amazing things with prose once made this observation: “The impossible often has a kind of integrity to it that the merely improbable lacks.”

In a long following paragraph, Adams suggests that to call something impossible merely suggests that there are things we don’t know enough about yet, and there are a lot of things we don’t know about. When considering something new which we know nothing or very little about, questions about our possible success are shaped by other people’s and society’s thoughts — not ours. Making decisions about what might or might not be possible is silly in a state of ignorance.

Here’s another way to go about it:

Consider how much I want something based on the joy it would bring. Things that make me excited about the possible outcome bring on a more advanced consideration: they take on the quality of exploration ‘well-if-this-were-to-be-possible-I’d-have-to…,’ which is liking imaging that a thing has happened and imagining backward what allowed it to happen. That impels me to go on a quest to bring together or do the things I’d have to do as if the thing were possible.

What I have found in years of exploration is that what I want deeply is consistent with how I live, and so it makes sense to work toward those things even if I don’t know whether I can achieve them or not. For example, recently I decided it was time for me to get into better physical shape, and I decided to be stronger and in better cardio shape than I have ever been. At 52, I am stronger than I ever was even when working out hard over years, and my cardio is not nearly as good though I have decided it will take longer to run a sub 19 minute 5K.

To work toward a thing that I don’t know whether it is possible requires two things: that I act as if it is possible, and that I accept the goal as a vague one. How can I work toward an undefined thing? By how I see it coincides with the integrity of my life. Being in better physical shape allows me to work longer in the garden, carry with ease things that used to stress me (like 50 pound bags of mulch), and do more things as a lover.

Here is my working aphorism: There is no possible or impossible; only what I see as worthwhile and what I’m willing to work toward.