You know, an Aunt told me recently that living up to our potential is a big responsibility and can be a bit scary. I honestly believe that’s true. How many of you find it easier to keep things as they are, rather than leave your comfort zone and try something you might seriously fail at? I know I have felt this way before. I feel that way about graduate school right now. It is easier and cheaper to avoid graduate school. I am not going to become a teacher, and I am not going for any particular job in mind, so I can understand why many people think it would be a waste of time and money anyway. However, I felt that I still had a lot to learn about creative writing and literature and I wanted to learn it. Even though I am only a couple of months in, I have already learned so much despite the added stress to my life.
My point?
My Aunt was absolutely right. Sometimes leaving a comfort zone can be a good thing. So, how do we live up to our potential with so much negativity and fear or self-doubt dragging us all down? How can we help others find the courage to live up to their potential if they are afraid of the added stress or pressure it may have on them? It was Charles Dickens who once wrote, “A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other.” What profound secret and mystery do we each have and how do we find it? This is something, I would love to know, so I did a little digging.
Abraham Lincoln once said, “And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.” When you think about your life in terms of living rather than numbers, it makes me feel a lot younger than I actually am. Does anyone else feel that way? There is so much in this amazing world to see, to do, to experience, and I have focused a great deal of my life on just finding ways to pay bills. While bills are important, I think it’s easy to get caught up in just that part of life. Reaching for higher will allow me to pay my bills and experience life in all the places I have always dreamed of. However, too often I worry, and make a thousand excuses for myself on why I shouldn’t go because I am afraid of what could happen or what might happen.
I once heard someone else say, “Living up to our full potential means living a life free of fear, failure, and sorrow.” While we all know this is much easier said than done, I see the point. For example, I am afraid of ever trusting another person because of past experiences, yet I know if I don’t overcome this, then how can I ever be fully happy and free again? Everyone has a fear or reason to not do what they dream of or feel they are capable of. Yet, I am now learning that If I don’t strive to overcome myself as my biggest obstacle, then how can I live up to my potential? I see so many amazing people each day, and at my past job, I met thousands of people working in a theme park and everyone had something amazing about them. Seeing people smile and together walking around parks distracting themselves from their life, people seem so much freer and happier. It has me now thinking, what if everyday life is like that? Is that possible? I believe it could be if we choose for it to be.
I guess what I am trying to say is everyone has the potential to be amazing, happy people. Living up to it is another thing. During a hard time, someone told me to remember something. They said, “Laura, life is only 10% about what actually happens to you. Its 90% how you deal with it.” I realized then, if I deal with my anger and sorrow in a negative way, it will take me down a path that would turn me into an angry and negative person. I don’t want to be like that. I can’t believe anyone actually does, in fact sometimes I wonder if people wonder how they got in that point in their life to make them feel that way? Or be a certain way? Maybe it’s because I was letting my emotions control me, rather than me controlling my emotions?
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