We often tell ourselves something like "You can do anything you set your mind to" or "You can be anything you want to be."

It feels good. It offers a sense of possibility. It inspires us to dream up a life we can fall in love with. But it's also, sadly, just not true.

I can't bring someone back from the dead. I can't walk to Japan. I will never be an Olympic gymnast. I will never be anything other than me. 

We don't need to lie to ourselves to create inspiration and possibility. The reality of our lives, at least as far as I can see, is: "No one can do what you can do" and "Only you can be you."

There is a more honest and real inspiration and sense of possibility to be had here. Of all the possible versions of who you could be, what's the one that makes you feel the most alive, the most you? What's the unique constellation of gifts and values that version of you has to offer the world that no one else can quite replicate?