Is it actually possible to "pull yourself up by your own bootstraps"?

[Ken Burch]

If you're wearing bootstraps, they go no higher than your shins. Most of your body is already ABOVE your bootstraps.

Wouldn't you just pull yourself forward and land on your face?

How was this expression ever a thing?

[dchill]

1. Ironic, isn't it?

[marybourg]

2. It's metaphorical. For having so much

strength of character that you can do the near impossible.

[Dave Starsky]

3. Not according to Sir Isaac Newton, you can't.

At the same time you are pulling on your bootstraps, your bootstraps are pulling on you with same force.

[Swagman]

4. If the right circumstances fall into place

along with so many factors..timing..luck etc

And the premise in this silly statement is that every person is equally talented, mentally agile, healthy etc etc.

It's a bit like that statement : Everyone in America can grow up and become president. But it's actually an impossibility.
Apart from all the factors that get a person to the spot where they become the nominee for a particular party, about 12 million years would be needed for everyone to have a chance at being president.

These flippant statements are so much easier to make than having to think deeply about why it's not true,

[Phentex]

8. that sums it up...

It is usually said by someone who had a lot of help to begin with and by those who prefer not to think deeply.

[Donkees]

5. Laces used to be called bootstraps, and boots were usually closer to knee-height than shin-height...

It's similar to using mobility aids for lifting weak leg muscles:



Basically, the expression means to gather one's strength for a task, if your legs are too weak to pull yourself "out of the mud" use your arms to lift them by the straps.

[Donkees]

12. You seem to think that "pulling oneself up" means ascending higher as if the straps are overhead...

Me showing you a mobility aid as an example of 'straps pulling up', doesn't mean that I think the "bootstraps" metaphor is about debilitated/disabled persons ("you're out of the mud, but you still can't walk&quot

Pulling oneself up is about a low point in ones life, and gathering ones strength/motivation/creativity to pull out of it and keep moving. It's about self-empowerment.

[Ken Burch]

13. I'm all for self-empowerment.

And I didn't mean that as any comment on the differently abled. Will delete the post to avoid further confusion due to my poor wording.

[malthaussen]

6. Depends on whether you're wearing the boots at the time or not. n/t

[Iggo]

7. If I had stored my boots way up high, and they were anchored securely...

...and the straps were of such strength that they could bear my weight without being separated from my boots, and of such width that they would not damage my hands as I pull, and if my muscles were of such strength that I could lift the weight of my body...

...then Yes, I could pull myself up by my own bootstraps.

[Ken Burch]

10. "Pull yourself up by the solid-lead, silk-lined bootstraps on the top shelf of your closet....

...after spending six months lifting weights while lying face down in the mud".

Maybe they just shortened it.

[Iggo]

11. I bet that's probably it.