potential running

One day last winter, this very wise young girl I know and I were discussing what to do with our lives. She is easy to be honest and deep with, so I found myself admitting that I was afraid of my own potential and that I almost always shoot below the mark in my goals out of, well, two fears.

The first is rejection- common, I am sure.

And the other is potential. She understood right away, even though it is a concept difficult to explain. Is it because potential = possibility and if we reach our potential, we run out of possibility? Or are we afraid that road to potential is much shorter than we hope? We fear that speeding down it with all the dreams and talents and energy we have stored inside of us might lead only to disappointment. That road might lead us to see that we not really capable of all we think we are. So not even trying for our deepest dream allows that potential to hang safely in the future, gleaming and always... possible.

Then, this brilliant young lady made a beautiful analogy:

Maybe potential is like running. Maybe one day you run your best and you just go a mile. The next day you run again and you do that mile, but a bit faster. And you just continue on like that, running every day and, over time, find that you are going further and faster with every attempt. Maybe then potential is flexible and the simple act of reaching for it helps you expand its possibility, so that nothing is ever really reached, only reached for, the very act of which make us bigger people.

So I am one step closer now to dreaming, to daring to set my sights... somewhere