What is potential?

This subject keeps popping into my head so I thought I had better see what it looks like when it comes out of my head and on to paper. The photo is of the sunrise on 1st Jan this year which I thought was particularly relevant.

“Potential”: what does that word make you think of? For most of my adult life I had a very precise definition, which I am now amending. I went to a top university (Cambridge) and got a good degree (English). In the years immediately after graduation, I watched people I had been studying with on television, reading the news, acting, heard them on the radio, read about them in the papers and read articles they had written. I bumbled through a couple of jobs as a librarian and pharmaceutical journalist, got married and divorced, ended up in a non-graduate job with a large food manufacturer and gave up on the idea of reaching my potential.

You see, for me, “potential” meant the same as “expectation”. It was the linear career progression that we were all meant to launch ourselves on to when we left the safe haven of academia. I know now that I probably would have been happier if I had stayed as my tutors suggested, and became a lecturer. But I didn’t and that’s now water under the bridge (pick your bridge as you float below them on your punt with a picnic!).

I could see “potential” way up ahead of me, with many of my former lecture mates so much closer to it, but seemingly unattainable to me. I flirted with the idea of chasing it again once I hit my 40s and went back to academia (ahhhh, two years of essays, lectures, exams, bliss actually!) but the universe had other ideas and intervened in the shape of health issues and a child who needed to be home educated, so I ended up as a very well qualified criminal solicitor who practises part time but very much as a job rather than a career with prospects.

Now I’m back to writing. As someone somewhere once said, writing as an occupation is a bit like having homework every day for the whole of your life, which is actually fine with me, however much I might groan about it and find important things to do instead. It’s actually what I always wanted to do but thought it was a bit silly and I should find a “proper” career instead. But, for a while, I found myself squinting at “potential” again, this time threatening me with the feeling of failure if I don’t reach some unspecified expectation. And at 50, time is running out for me to fulfil those Oxbridge expectations.

A while ago, I was agonising about the whole idea of potential. Anything that advertises guidance or coaching to “reach your potential” depressed me because I thought it must, by now, be so far out of reach. Those lofty expectations that are placed invisibly on your shoulders when you graduate from Cambridge with what feels like several dead rabbits on those same shoulders and no mortarboard (no idea why Cambridge doesn’t have them, but I was super excited to get to wear one when I graduated – twice – at Anglia Ruskin). Potential for me meant almost certain failure because I was sure I would never reach it.

Then I went to see Richard Wilkins; I know I keep mentioning him, he’s so inspiring. Richard talks about potential as being what you have now, even if you don’t use it, rather than what you might do in the future. For example, a Ferrari is still a Ferrari, and is still worth as much, even if you only ever drive it at 30mph. That made me think. Maybe I’m not a failure because I haven’t reached a stereotypical Oxbridge goal; maybe I’m still worth just as much. Hmmm.

Next, I started thinking about the actual word. I love words (good thing, really) and enjoy taking them apart. “Potent” means strong or powerful. My dictionary talks about “potential” with reference to capability and possibility, which is a bit closer to expectation, but I like the idea of power, and at my age, if I can’t choose how to interpret a word, then when can I? So I’m choosing. I now choose to see that potential which for so many years weighed heavy on my shoulders and threatened me with disappointment, shame even, as a secret power like a sports car. Who knows what it will do? Maybe something big and loud and public, or maybe something less noticeable but all the same important. After all, what is more important than educating your own child, if that’s the path fate deals out?

So this is my offering for today. I’m not chasing potential any more; I’m celebrating it in the now and enjoying the mystery of what might transpire in the future. I’ve seized the opportunity to make my own interpretation. Does this speak to you? Or do you have another word that weighs heavy and needs re-interpreting? Please comment and let me know if you have been through a similar journey or if you might need to. Happy to suggest alternative interpretations if that helps too!