Pull Yourself Up By Your Bootstraps

Bootstraps are those pieces of fabric at the back of your boots and shoes.  They help you to put on your boots.  You can see them on my hiking boots in the picture for this post.  Now imagine trying to lift yourself off the ground by pulling the bootstraps.  Obviously, it would not work.  But, that is basically how this phrase is used now.

Pulling yourself up by the bootstraps means improving your situation without help from other people.  It is usually used in an imperative form to tell someone to be better.

Example:  Your room is a mess; you have been just sitting on the couch watching tv.  Pull yourself up by the bootstraps and get a job!

The original phrase – dating back to 1834 – meant to do something impossible or absurd.  Indeed, the first recorded use of the phrase pulling oneself by the bootstrap was in response to someone who claimed to have invented a perpetual motion machine.  These machines are supposed to work forever without additional energy.  They are physically impossible to make.  In a 1781 book called The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen, the main character is able to pull himself out of a swamp by pulling his own hair.  This might have been an earlier variation of the bootstrapping phrase.

I suggest we start using the phrase, “blowing your own sails” to replace the original meaning of the phrase.
Do you have another suggestion for a phrase that means to do something impossible or absurd?

For more English phrases and quotes, follow me on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/ESL-ToyBox-112152010890485

Reference:
https://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/pull_yourself_up_by_your_bootstraps/
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps-nonsense_n_5b1ed024e4b0bbb7a0e037d4#:~:text=The%20concept%20is%20simple%3A%20To,yourself%20without%20any%20outside%20help.&text=To%20pull%20yourself%20up%20by%20your%20bootstraps%20is%20actually%20physically,to%20do%20something%20completely%20absurd.%E2%80%9D