My mother was big on the "you can do anything." It was a way of leaving it all up to me, and her not having to think about things, because when she did try to think about things, her thoughts and comments were pretty much useless. She didn't think anything I was interested in mattered (evidently, but I won't quote the dismissive things she said that showed that) nor could be bothered to find out about them. It would have required expanding her world view, finding ways to encourage and involve me in the world with respect to things she knew nothing about. It was also a way of denying I had a problem that needed help, and being able to blame me for not conforming. When I think about this is makes me angry. What a wasted life. Yeah, I could deal with the social stuff eventually, after sacrificing most of my life to learn it, the stuff she couldn't be bothered to gently teach me.

I hate stupid, lazy, pie-in-the-sky thinking. There is a small bit of truth in all this, simply that if you push beyond what you are sure you can do, you stretch and find more.