Ты можешь заниматься, чем угодно/"You Can Do Anything”

There’s a phrase I encountered recently in my messages that set me off so thoroughly I understand why I decided to make self-help one of my translation specialties from both French and Russian into English.

A friend in Russia who is also a self-help guru left me a voice memo that included this line: “Ты можешь заниматься, чем угодно.” (Ty mozhesh’ zanimat’sya, chem ugodno.)

What floored me was that, out of curiosity, I tapped this phrase into a translator on my phone and was then told it means: “You can do anything.”

It does not mean this. Several parameters to this expression put it in the same self-improvement territory but make it more cautious/subtle. 

Заниматься only sort of means “do.” It’s a reflexive verb that you do to yourself that should compute as “practice an activity, occupy one’s time with something.” It’s associated with playing a sport or doing homework since it focuses on discipline—attempting to do something. 

This is heightened by the fact this first verb is in the imperfective aspect. The English expression “You can do anything” implies ability to achieve something to my ears. Achievement is at the heart of much of the perfective aspect of verbs whereas imperfective Russian verbs emphasize process itself and repetition.

Thirdly, угодно doesn’t mean “anything.” It means “what pleases you.” The things that please "you" are not everything and anything. 

Fourthly, to frame this sentiment, this brand of self-help Russian from this guru in particular distinguishes between already knowing how to do something (уметь) and merely having the capacity to do something (мочь). You may have even been taught to preface verbs with уметь and not мочь when talking about capacity. It’s a fine hair to split to realize that a guru sees a difference here.

Put it all together with that in mind and it means “You can pursue all the things that matter to you."

I love self-help. It gets folks to set reasonable expectations. The saying “You can do anything” is baked into American culture. Many Millennials and Gen X-ers will remember a similar line from the title sequence for the show Reading Rainbow. It’s imprecise at best and if heeded literally sets people up to misunderstand what is possible.