The Weight of Potential

One of the strangest things a person can carry is potential. Potential is invisible and because of that it has a heavy weight and people cannot always see it clearly. You however can feel it sitting on your back every day. It follows you into class, work, and random quiet moments when you should be relaxing. It whispers to you that you could be doing more.

I think a lot of people live with this voice. It is always there. You finish one thing and instead of feeling proud, your brain immediately jumps to the next thing. You get a few seconds of satisfaction and appraisal from yourself and move on. You get through a hard week and instead of resting, you start thinking about the things you could have done if you pushed harder. You look at what life might become if you worked even harder or smarter. That is good motivation but it can be exhausting.

Potential is supposed to feel exciting. When people say someone has a lot of potential, they usually mean it as a compliment. They mean you are capable. They mean your future looks big. But potential can make it hard to be present. In the moment it can make your achievements feel temporary, like everything is just a stepping stone to some better version of you that you have not reached yet. You never feel fully fulfilled. I have felt that for a long time now.

Even when I accomplish something, I do not sit with it for very long. My mind moves quickly to what is next. What could be better. What I have not done yet. It is useful in some ways. It keeps me moving. It keeps me curious. It also creates a pressure that is hard to explain. Even when people compliment me on my achievements, I feel like you could have achieved more.

There is a permanent gap between where you are and where you think you should be. You start measuring yourself against your future and disappointed at your past. You stop noticing how far you have come because all you can see is how far you still have to go.

Drive is healthy. It gives you direction. It helps you build. But being haunted by your own potential is different. That feels like never being fully at peace, because every moment of rest feels like wasted time and ability. In today’s world of social media that feeling is more common.

I can’t suddenly pretend I do not care about building more, learning more, or becoming more; but, I do think there has to be balance. At some point, I have to let myself be a person and not just a never ending project I am working on. I think part of growing up is learning how to carry potential without letting it carry you.

I used the built in voice to text feature on Google Docs for the first time to write this blog. It did help me write faster and made it easier. I feel like I might miss misspellings or grammar issues.

Check out my blog about Apple and how I became intrigued with the company.