Few things have frustrated me more in my life than the word "potential". It is so awful to hear someone say, "You have so much potential." I heard it a lot from certain people in my youth, and this scene from Blue Valentine sums up my feelings pretty well. Potential for what?
I know I'm not successful. I don't need to be reminded that you think I should be. The word "potential" is vague and not helpful. Even if one were to be full of "potential", it only matters when it is kinetic. The issue is not whether one understands his potential, but whether he understands kinesis. In any case, pursuing some vague ghost ideal of "potential" is a waste. All anyone wants is security, happiness, and love. It is simply that they are as elusive as this idea of "potential".
I can understand why this piece resonated with you because listening to the argument of the man here very much reminded me of you presenting your positions in various conversations. I think both the man and the woman had some valid things to say (even though she WAS vague). In my own life over the past 7 - 8 years, I've sort of had that very conversation in my head (both sides) on various occasions. I'm 63 and yet I have the financial assets of the average 26-year-old American male. I've sometimes been told by various people that I "must" do this or that, and when yet I'm told I "must" do something I typically get upset and resist it. I will say the past few years have driven me to more prayer and more Scripture than perhaps I've ever sought in my life. I would love to speak to Joseph of the Old Testament. He had "potential" and yet he spent years as both a slave and a prisoner before his "ship came in".
ReplyDeleteThe U.S. Army used to have a recruiting motto, "Be All That You Can Be". It seemed to be saying, "Let the Army open up some new vistas and new opportunities for you".
ReplyDeleteLike probably most people, I do not feel that I have been "all that I could be", but that has been much to do with the choices I have made for myself, under some changing and surprising circumstances.
What is potential? What is success?
Ultimately, that is for God to judge.
Today, I believe that the potential for me would be found in the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi:
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace: where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.