As I've become an adult, I've had this persistent, nagging worry that somehow I'm "not living up to my potential" or "not using my talents". That would be certainly be a shame. A wiser man than myself once said, "The saddest thing in life is wasted talent". (What's that, some kind of Eastern thing? Far from it.) And that certainly would be a reason for concern and re-evaluation of what I'm doing with myself, it is was true.
But I'm starting to re-evaluate the whole thing. How does one objectively measure potential? Maybe I don't have as much "potential" (whatever that means) as I've always thought I had for certain facets of my life. It seems like it's much more complex than just saying that person x has "talent" or "potential" to do whatever it is that they do, and wondering why or how much they're "using it".
I'm wondering: when other people get introspective about their lives and what they're doing and what will make them happy, etc... do they wonder about this whole "using my potential" thing?
1 comment:
You're the Tim Thomas of the math world.
I would think if you go through this train of thought and then come to the conclusion that, "well, maybe I just don't actually have that potential," then that would be more deflating.
It's one thing to have potential and another to be intrigues by it and put it to use. I would probably have a lot of the characteristics of a good serial killer, but that doesn't really interest me at this point (one day. a boy can dream.) I guess that's a super extreme and therefore irrelevant example, but my point is that if you don't have a specific interest, then potential is essentially useless on its own.
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