When does one decide that an obstacle is impossible to pass?

I think your issue may be that you’re not great at learning by reading things. I know I’m horrible at it, I’m more of a hands on/visual learner. Maybe try looking up informative videos that explain the topics you’re interested in. It may be much easier for you to grasp new concepts in this manner.

If you can change the “th” word to “our” and have the sentence still make sense, it’s spelled their.

As @El_Cadejo says, look for new ways of learning old things. I’m 53 and I just recently learned to parallel park with greater than 50% success. I’m currently 90%+.

For the programming languages, you really just have to dive in and program. I can recommend some good text books that have plenty of practice exercises, and you can ask me questions if you get stuck.

@ibstubro…I hesitate to ask about the other 10%

<—- Gave up trying to learn to ride a 20” Shwinn Unicycle.

I spent at least 16 hours trying to get it. I made no progress and risked knocking my head on the pavement at least a dozen times. After a particularly close call I decided it was time to hang up the wheel and leave that job to the professionals: circus clowns.

@talljasperman knowing how to use APA or MLA formatting shouldn’t stop you studying. Most universities have people you can go and talk to who can help you learn the systems you need to use and how to apply them. They’re often attached to the library.

Using their or there, you can use software such as Grammarly to help you ensure your work is right.

Why not try a one of course and see how you go? Don’t enrol in a program or even a university course. Are there colleges or other courses you can do that require you to submit assessment but will give you a chance to see if you’re going to be able to manage the work? Here we have TAFE courses that are set at a lower level than university courses but you could certainly learn computer programming at TAFE. See if there’s something similar in Canada.

@yankeetooter If I fail on my first attempt, I call it, and drive on. I might try the same spot again if it’s still open, but I largely gave up on ‘fixes’.

You have to pick certain things and attack them from all angles until you have it beaten. You have to focus on that particular thing and leave the others for later. If something is taking too long and is keeping you from moving on put it in the back of the queue. You may or may not get to the ones on the end. Realize it is a simple sequence of events, it is one foot in front of the other…one step at a time. Learning to play an instrument or a language can take a few years this way. If done casually it’ll be a decade or never. C++ will take six months to a year to learn and a few years in regular practice to be good at it. Big things like this few people will ever do so doing even just one puts you ahead of the pack.

Nothing should stop you from truly trying to learn, or better yourself in any other way. But based on your history here, my perception is that you pretend to keep trying, but in fact blame your lack of progress on outside factors, while doing absolutely nothing.

Not knowing the difference between “there” and “their” is not keeping you from pursuing any goal. But you bring it up practically every single time that you discuss your dissatisfaction with life. If it is actually that powerful a thing for you to know – such that knowing the difference between “there” and “their” will somehow allow you to complete a degree or get a job, you would learn it. It’s simply not that difficult. There are a zillion ways to get yourself to remember the difference; a simple Google search will show that. But you have to want to do it. And then you have to actually try.

The same applies to everything else on your list, or anything else you might care to put there. If you put a genuine effort in, you can do it – it’s not sufficient to say, “I can’t do this one thing, therefore nothing else can ever be done”. That is simply whining.

When they are caught and are being pulled into it. Like a chipper or a cable winch!

Are you familiar with the phrase “here and there”?

The only difference between them is that one begins with a “t”. But obviously BOTH of them are used to describe location. You wouldn’t write “heir and their” would you ? Of course not. So everytime you need the word for location it is THERE because it’s almost the same as HERE. Both describe location.

So that leaves “their”. This is a word describing someones possessions, such as their books, their coats, etc. Etc.

To remember that “their” describes someone’s possessions, again, just drop the letter “t” and you have the word “heir” which describes one who, upon death, inherits the POSSESSIONS of another. Obviously it’s not a location word (that would be “THERE”)

An example of usage would be something like “When the parents drew up THEIR will, they left THEIR prized coin collection to THEIR firstborn son who is THEIR HEIR.

To figure out which of the two to use, all you have to do I’d pause for a second to think about which purpose it will serve. It will be either for location (HERE) or possession (HEIR). It’s one or the other. Just don’t forget to add the “t” at the beginning.

The third one is the easiest to remember since it’s the only one containing an apostrophe. The apostrophe stands for the missing letter.

The word “they’re” literally means “they are”. It can’t have any other meaning. So you can either keep things simple and always write out both words (they are). Or you can use the contraction of the two which becomes (they’re) as the apostrophe replaces the “a” in the word “are”.

So now, if you say you don’t know which spelling to use when, you can’t say that it was never explained adequately. All you have to do is remember the proper usage associated with two words which have totally different purposes. “HERE” and “HEIR” are the two key words and they’re very difficult to mix up. One is used for location and the other one
indicates possession.

So, if you can’t take a few seconds to think about the PURPOSE served by the word (location or possession) then it simply means that you can’t be bothered to exert the effort to think for a few seconds and decide.

This ain’t rocket science, you know :)

But at least you can never again say that nobody gave you a clear explanation with included memory association word cues. (HERE and HEIR)

The ball is in your court now.

Back around 1995 I had eaten some LSD and I was coming down and was in the awkward period were my body said sleep and my brain was all “not a fucking chance”. I did the only thing I could. I sat on a couch and marathon-ed episodes of the Simpsons I had on VHS.

This always kinda stuck with me. Homer told Bart that no matter how good he got there would always be a hundred people better. It sounds like you don’t really see the grey. Perhaps you should simply try to get better at the things you want to learn. You don’t need to master them for the skills to be useful.

You weigh how important it is to you. Then you exhaust your options and energy in relation to that importance.

I don’t think there are very many obstacles that are impossible to pass. More likely, there are obstacles that you decide are not worth the time and energy to pass.

I think it’s okay to know when to quit. And it’s also okay to plow ahead through the seemingly impossible.

With regard to programming, I suggest trying Python. Python has recently edged out Java as the language most widely taught in schools. There is a ton of online material for learning Python.

The online interpreter makes it easy to start coding. You can execute a single line of code. print(“Hello, world!”) will run just fine. One thing I like about Python is that you can start by doing your coding in a single file. There are no annoying object or executable files to keep track of.

Start out slowly. As you go along, try to come up with your own programs. They need not be very complicated or useful. I find this a really helpful way of learning a programming language. It is a way of personalizing what you are doing. If you get stuck, search the Web for a solution or ask on Fluther.

Python is similar enough to C++ and Java that most of what you learn studying it will transfer to these other languages, but you may end up being disappointed that these other languages do not share some of the features in Python.

There’s nothing I can’t overcome. I may have to think a bit, but I will always prevail. That might change in a few hours, but I’m going to fight.