Chapter 7
REACH YOUR FULL POTENTIAL
My mother was in her 90s when I would visit her in the nursing home. She felt her days were done and wanted to pass on as life seemed no longer to h a v e any meaning. I wondered why this was so, as life to me s eemed so wonderful. I guess she felt very low in energy and that she had lived a good life and what more was there to do? She was well looked after in the home, and had no financial or other worries. Then I thought of a life principle that she could apply, and this would give her a purpose in life:
“Help people reach their full potential”
Such a philosophy of life would be useful to any one at any age. It would work for a person with lots of energy and active, or even if one were confined to bed or a wheelchair. In fact I liked it so much, my wife and I adopted it ourselves!
How do we know if we have really reached our full potential yet? We are born, go to school, join the working world, get married, raise a family then come to retirement. Is there a feeling that that is the end, and it is downhill from there on? Or, do we feel that there is still unfinished business, that we have potential that has never yet been fully realized?
The story of Chris is an interesting one about reaching full potential. He was in a marriage that was stressful. He never felt in charge or with his own power. He was always being put down and told he couldn’t do things, and for peace in the family always conforming. His world was circumscribed by the constant wants and demands of the family for 25 years. Then he met a lady that had just come through a difficult separation and was into therapy and discovering her own potential. He realized then what he had been missing. He read all the New Age books, visited a psychiatrist, and went through two years of struggle to try to get his own feeling of self-worth. At one point, he told me, he went half blind in the office one day. He consulted his doctor who said, after hearing Chris’s story, that it was just stress.
Then he made the break. His children were now old enough to manage on their own, so he negotiated a separation leading eventually to divorce.
Psychologists have said that certain major changes in life can create sickness within two years. Well, Chris separated, moved into his own condominium, lost his job, was elected head of a national association and all this within two months of separation and he did not get sick. He prospered! He began then to discover many new and exciting things. He found a better job; he took chances joining new groups and taking on adventures that gave him a new sense of self-worth. He found that people really liked him and that boosted his self-esteem.
After two years of being on his own, making new friends, finding his own power, and true potential, he finally found true love and got married. Now they are both happy, in love and working to help others reach their full potential.
The story is not meant to recommend divorce to find your full potential, but to show that it often takes courage and wisdom to take whatever steps are necessary to reach that full potential..
(N.B. The above is fiction, but in essence based on my own story)