What Mean Girls and Calculus Teach Us About Life
“THE LIMIT DOES NOT EXIST,” Cady shouts in triumph, yelling out the winning answer. Her team has won.
This line alone has prompted dozens of memes and is easily one of the most quoted lines from the movie. But for all that it’s quoted, how many understand what it actually means?
Bear with me for a moment and let’s get a little technical and break it down.
Limits are mostly used in calculus. A limit is used to tell us what value a function is approaching as the input in the equation gets closer and closer to a number.
For instance, look at the graph above. This is a function, essentially what the equation looks like when graphed. The limit tells us what number on the graph the equation approaches as you input numbers into where the unknown variable, x, is.
Let’s look at an example. In the function above, let’s look at the limit as x approaches 2. X refers to the horizontal axis, so as we look at the numbers on the x line, we see it gets closer to a number on the y axis, in this case, 1. That would be the limit as x approaches 2.
But as x approaches -1, you see the line go off into infinity. The line will go up forever and never stop because numbers stretch on until the end of time. In this example, the limit as x approaches -1 is infinity.
So, how does this apply to life?
Well, the limit tells us the number the function Is approaching. Technically, the function never actually gets there because numbers are limitless.
When you apply this to life, it can show you that there is always going to be room for improvement. As you approach the best version of yourself, there is always going to be room for tiny little growths. You will never become the best version of yourself because that’s a myth.
That’s not to discourage you, in fact, it’s meant to encourage you. It’s optimistic that things can always get better. You can interpret this as the opposite — that things can always get worse. Or they can go sideways. That’s true. The spirit of life is unpredictable.
As you do anything in life, you will find that there is always going to be a better way. The best way is just a term to encourage us. The ‘best’ doesn’t exist. Best is a subjective experience, meaning it’s going to be different for every person.
Best is subjective. There is always going to be a better. You have to be able to accept your work as feasible at one point instead of chasing an arbitrary goal like ‘best’ or ‘perfect.’
Those don’t exist. Perfect doesn’t exist.
Limits teach us something valuable. They go on for infinity, getting closer and closer to the number, but never actually getting there. Since numbers can go on forever, the gap keeps decreasing, but since numbers are infinite, the gap is also infinite.
This is an important lesson. It shows that there is no endpoint. And if there is no endpoint, then there will always be room for improvement.
You may find something that is the best for you, but it is likely you will find there are going to be ways to tweak it to get better and better.
It says a lot about the human condition. Look at where the species was a thousand years ago versus where we are now. We changed the conditions around us, looking for ways to improve our society, and we evolved as a result.
It’s inspiring to think that we will never reach the cusp because we can always make the cusp better than it was.
Imagine how human life will improve in the next fifty years, especially with the ever-increasing advancement of technology.
As Cady says, “The limit does not exist.”
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