Today, I've been thinking a lot about my potential. I imagine I'm not the only person in the world who's ever done this. But me being myself, I hit myself with some harsh realizations. The first one was that my potential may be far smaller than myself or others believe. If true, I may have wasted a lot of time focusing on what may be considered unreachable. But I decided that I could live with that. The second dose of "Marcus ism" came in the form of realizing that even if my potential is phenomenally high, I may never live up to it. Is chasing an amazing goal still as beautiful, if you know you'll never arrive at it? After much thought, I decided yes. There are so many beautiful possibilities from coming ever so close. So finally, I hit myself with the toughest thing of all. My potential doesn't matter. This was truly harsh. It stung, and mainly because, as of right now, my potential seems to be the one thing I actually have going for myself. Don't get me wrong. I realize that I have my life, my health, my family, my friends, my freedom, and my faith...wait a minute, I coming up with f words on purpose? The point is I'm talking about potential. Even if it is limitless, if potential is never applied to anything worthwhile, then it simply saunters into the darkness of obscurity. It seems like our educational systems and society in general is always preaching the power of potential. We tell our kids to try to stretch theirs, but never stress the application. One of my favorite definitions of the word potential is as follows: possible, as opposed to actual.
I guess the whole conclusion I drew from my hours long thought-fest is that it's time to stop focusing so much on being capable of being, and just start being. I'm ready to refocus my mind, body, heart and soul to those things actual instead of merely possible.
Basically, I no longer want to run to the mountaintop and yell "I CAN BE...". I'd rather calmly walk down below, saying to myself that I am. Think about it.
the Rare Poet
