Potential

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?