Potential

[dtsou]

Potential is highly overrated. The potential to do well in school. The potential to have a great relationship. The potential to change yourself. All of these things, although undeniably positive, fall far short of the willpower, determination, and perseverance required to turn the potential into a reality. It is far too easy to fall into

Comments

[palpablevt]

Hear hear. The idea of potential being squandered makes me upset than most things (which is problematic because I'm as guilty of it as anyone else). What's funny and sad is that the disciplined people w/o the potential usually get closer to the "goal" than the people with the potential, even though there's no chance they can get there.

[pessen]

It might be heartbreaking to have the potential and not the discipline, but only if you let it bother you. I know this advice is kinda useless, but I think it's true. You don't have to feel like you have to live up to your "potential", however you define it. I staunchly believe that you should do whatever it is that you think would make you the happiest. I don't care if you have multiple degrees in quantum physics and could be the next Einstein, if you enjoy flipping burgers at McDonald's more than working in a lab, then I think you shouldn't feel guilty about it at all

[dtsou]

No, I agree with you. I didn't really mean to comment on what people want to / should do. I was just talking about things like my class example, where people "want" to do well, and have the potential to do well, but they just don't because they can't make themselves put forth the effort to do it.

[pessen]

Ok, well, in that case I would question whether they truly "want" to do well or not. Obviously they would rather do well than do poorly, but it seems like when given the choice between doing well or just doing enough to get by that they choose the latter because that's the balance that they prefer.

For instance, I would like to be rich and successful, but given the choice between hard work to be rich and successful and less work to be in the situation I am in now, I actually prefer the less work.

Does that make sense?

[dtsou]

Yeah it makes sense, but that's not exactly the distinction I'm making, although it's close. I'm saying that given a "choice" to try to get something, most people just don't have the willpower to make themselves work as much as they need to to get it, even though they theoretically would gladly put forth the required work. Now, you could say that they really just don't WANT it enough, and in that respect you'd be right. But that's what I'm talking about, the lack of WANTing something enough. So, back to the class example, I "want" to do well in the class, and given how much work that I would need to do to do well, I would gladly perform that work, but I just can't make myself do it when it actually comes down to it. You could say that by making the decision to stop studying when I get tired, or not going back over an assignment to check answers, is a decision to not do well in the class, but in another sense it's really not, it's just lack of willpower, or whatever you want to call it. So, it's not that there's a lack of potential to