Contrary to popular opinion, not living up to your potential is neither a moral failure nor a fate worse than death.
25+1 years ago, I graduated from university.
1996 to be exact for the not-so-math-inclined.
The year that the first flip phone went on sale (Motorola), Prince Charles and Princess Diana got divorced, and 2Pac and Mariah topped the Billboard 100.
My mind boggles.
Due to the pandemic, my 25th reunion didn't happen. It is actually taking place this coming summer (though I won't be there). And as part of the lead-up, a couple of weeks ago, I was a guest on the podcast “Roads Taken”. [Check it out HERE].
The podcast was founded and is hosted by a fellow ’96, Leslie Jennings Rowley, who has made it her mission to interview as many people from our graduating class before June. And during every podcast episode, she asks about who we were as we graduated, who we thought we’d be, and how we’ve travelled down various roads to get where we are today.
Here’s what's interesting.
I was excited to reconnect with my ’96 community. (not so interesting)
AND.
I struggled with what felt suspiciously like embarrassment? Not shame precisely, but maybe self-consciousness? (more interesting)
After all this time: What was that about????
Clearly, there was something.
Those feelings prompted this post. Feelings that honestly took me by surprise, but I don’t think are unusual.
These are the words that I eventually said to myself.
I think my 22-year-old self would have appreciated hearing them as well.
Living up to your potential is more than an accumulation of “meaningful” achievements.
Dear Young Grasshopper:
When you launch yourself into the world after Dartmouth, on fire with your ideals and armed with your liberal arts degree, you are giddy with the scope of possibility and the sense of your own limitless potential. The world is yours.
You will try many kinds of jobs. Some you enjoy more than others. You will enjoy a path as a self-professed career nomad and professional dabbler.
You will not get a Ph.D. or an M.B.A.
You will not go to medical school (breaking your father's heart). Instead, you will get a law degree (restoring his faith in the world).
You will not invent a miraculous biodegradable material crucial to the survival of children in small developing countries or found a mildly successful startup raising Series B funding.
And you will question the “enough-ness” of what you’ve done with your life. Especially as you get older and you begin to believe that time is no longer on your side. You might begin to mourn the loss of all your potential.
Don’t.
Often, when people (friends, mentors and even yourself) talk about “living up to your potential”, what they’re really talking about is a particular kind of achievement - tied to what you do for work, how much you make, the size of your external impact on the world. Which in and of itself are not bad milestones. But you will realize that for many, many, many, accumulating these kinds of achievements are tied to striving untethered to passion, purpose or interest. They are the result of an ambivalent yet relentless commitment to doing the never ending and exhausting work of self improving, grinding, managing up, sweating blood and tears, or hustle culturing the way to the top of that arid Potential Mountain.
Breathe.
Your potential is not finite. It can be ever renewing as long as you continue to dream and have goals and interests and aspirations that are consistent with what matters to YOU. YOUR values.
And if you find that what matters to you isn’t what is traditionally valued?
Have faith.
