Because You Can Doesn’t Mean You Should

Men, women, young, and old — heed this! When Dr. Lindsey Mathews, the founding matriarch of DEUCE Gym, was founding BirthFit, an international educational resource for the motherhood transition, she used to bring an important sobering maxim to our world of hard charging, Type-A people. 

She’d say, “Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.”

Now, that was mostly directed at pregnant women who were keeping an important movement practice during their pregnancy. But, it’s a message for us all, isn’t it?

Capacity is supposed to come with the beautiful amenity of optionality, isn’t it? Having capacity is specifically wonderful because it gives you choice. After all, can you do something you can’t do? 

The other side to that same coin, though, is what Dr. Mathews was talking about. It’s likely that if you’re reading this sentence, you’re quite capable of many things, but just because you can..

Should you?