Potential – Part 4

Is your life all it really can be?

We have seen that potential is a possibility – but it does not become realised, unless we choose to exercise it, or realise it. In other words, we all have tremendous potential, but so much of it – perhaps far more than we realise, is untapped. And why? Well, as this series has exposed, it is actually because we choose not to tap into it.

We live much of our lives bringing far less than we really could to it. We bring less to our relationships, to our work and to the tasks we do, day to day. It is not as if we don’t know how to bring more – we do. Rather, we choose to bring less.

Hence, the potential is there, but it is untapped – because of the choices we ourselves make.

In Part 2 of this series, we looked at the fact that living less than our full potential has an impact on us. It makes it all seem dreary, it drains us and we feel that it is all far less than it really could be. It also affects all around us.

We would all have to admit that we know that life could be more, and in fact that it should be more, than what we allow day to day.

What we may choose to see, is that our own choices make up the way life is for us. And it is our own choice as to whether we bring all of us to life, or whether we settle for less.

This is where responsibility comes in. We may pretend to ourselves that life is the way it is because of “other people” or “circumstances” – and happily believe that it has nothing to do with us, but underneath, we really do know that it does.

The true meaning of responsibility is in bringing all of us, to all of life.

We make choices, each and every day and in fact in every moment throughout each day. At each of those moments, we decide whether we will bring our all, or not. When we meet someone, we either open right up to them, or we guard ourselves away and offer far less than what we could. We do the same with the tasks we attend to and the things we do.

If we are willing to be really honest, we can see plain as day that we make that choice. It is not thrust upon us – we are not forced to bring all we can, or to not do so. We actually choose this. This is very revealing. It might seem too much, as in, it comes with the realisation that we ourselves have set it all up(!) and so much of what we do not like is actually due to the choices we make. But, at the same time, we can see it as an opportunity to say – “Well then, I don’t like hearing it, but I know it’s the truth. And if that is so, then I can go about changing this, so that I do like what I then experience as my life….”

This is the opportunity on offer, and well worth it if we want to reap the benefits – of feeling invigorated, full and alive, through having brought our all, i.e. from living our full potential.

This concludes our series on Potential.

This article was first published in Evolve College’s Studymassage News.