Impossible for breakfast

What if: a pre-qualifier often used to avoid danger. What if we run out of gas? What if no one shows up?

You could say it’s a sensible dose of reality. You could say that…

But often it’s just used as an excuse. Instead of being the two words leading to the idea of something great, it’s the sentiment of a fearful mind. Because “what if no one shows up?” could just as well be “what if everyone shows up?”

We live in reality, both you and I. And there are downsides to every upside. Glory, the idea of great indeavors, is often balanced more heavily with the mundane, the average… reality. It may seem childish to believe in the impossible. We’re all reasonable adults by now. But what we now know as achievable was once thought out of reach.

Isn’t such a belief required in the endeavor of great things? 

Impossible is an adjective meaning not able to occur, exist, or be done. But at this point in human history, if it hasn’t been done, shouldn’t it be deemed impossible?

As a collective human race, we’ve done some nearly impossible things: We’ve been to the moon; we’ve broken the four-minute mile;  we’ve even carried soda machines up the tallest mountains.

But will we ever land a man on Mars or run a three and a half-minute mile? Maybe it just requires a younger mental state. After all, it was the young Queen of Hearts who made a habit of believing in the impossible.

"When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." 
Queen of Hearts from Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland