I’ve lost track of the number of people who have told me I’m crazy because I believe that I can stop hiccups on command.

They say that hiccups are an “involuntary muscle spasms” and that there’s no way to intentionally prevent the spasm once hiccups start.

But the next time that I get the hiccups, I guarantee that they’ll be gone in less than 30 seconds using nothing more than focus. Just like they were the last time, and the time before that.

I’ve never gotten a good answer for why I can do this, but if I had to guess it has something with my ability to control my breathing and relax the muscles in my stomach.

That’s not the point though.

The more interesting topic is the way this ability came to be.

On an ordinary day in elementary school, one of my best friends got the hiccups during class. They went on for five minutes or so, until my teacher at the time had enough.

She came up with a rule that my friend would owe the class 25 cents for every additional hiccup from that point forward.

At first, he complained about the silly rule and insisted that he couldn’t stop his hiccups. But as the (ultimately fictitious) dollar value rose, he made a conscious decision to stop his hiccups, and just like that they were done.

That single moment convinced me that I could stop my hiccups, and literally overnight I went from someone who would hiccup uncontrollably until I could barely breathe, to someone who hiccups a couple of times and then stops.

This isn’t meant to brag. I realize that the ability to stop my hiccups is inconsequential. Maybe a fun party trick at the most.

But the underlying idea is worth exploring.

Just knowing that it was possible to control hiccups was enough for me to learn the skill. Just like the first sub 4:00-mile released a cascade of followers once they saw someone do it.

It begs the question: what else is there that’s just barely “impossible?”

-Brandon