Got Potential?

What gives life meaning? At some point in our lives we are faced with the question. Sadly many times it comes late in life when it’s impossible to change much of our experiences. Then the realization that we lived our life without an answer to this dilemma can bring feelings of regret and despair. It is tragic for one to decide that he is unhappy with how he lived his life after the fact. Therefore this is a question best considered now while we still can decide the way we want to live our lives, at least to a certain degree. This is not suggesting that anyone should reach a definite answer; in fact this question is best left with some degree of uncertainty. On the other hand, we should try to discover the way we wish to face the future so that at least later on when we reflect upon the past we can say we made the best decisions according to our former knowledge and wisdom.


Facing life with a philosophy that you will act to the best of your ability and learn from the times you fail should eliminate regret upon reflection. Key word in that sentence is should. Saying it should does not in the least bit suggest that it will not. We will always find regrets about our past. After all, hindsight’s a (I think I can say it here) bitch. I highly doubt that anyone has lived without feeling some touch of regret. However, knowing that you did the best that you could have at the time at least reduces the chance for regret. There’s no need to blame yourself for acting on the best of your knowledge; how could you expect any better? Regret is an emotion that should be avoided as much as possible. It is one of the most useless emotions we can feel. We wish we did not act the way we did, but can we do anything about it? You can learn from the experience, but that does not mean you have to hold it against yourself for making the wrong decision before. It is with this philosophy that I face the question of life’s value and purpose.

So I guess I should answer the question I posed before: How do we asses a life’s value? I believe a life’s significance is in its potential. It is a potential to inspire, to support other people, to love and be loved, to teach, to do good in someone’s point of view. Now this applies to those who are young, middle aged, old, and dead. Abraham Lincoln is dead, but he still has a potential to inspire. The story of his life and the ideals that he stood for continue to influence people today. Authors are still writing new books about the famous president sharing lessons learned by and from Lincoln. A 93 year old woman lying on her death bed without any surviving friends or family also has potential. There is a chance that she may share a lesson learned from her life with a nurse, or possibly her circumstance may inspire someone to start a program to help older people in her situation. The woman may not even fulfill that possibility, but that does not mean that the chance does not exist. Even the life of a 3 time convicted murder has value. That convict may give psychologists insight into a murderer’s mind and help them to discover ways to rehabilitate other prisoners. The absolute scum of the earth may never have any positive effect on the future, but his potential for a positive impact, however small it may be, gives his life value. It is impossible to asses the total potential of anyone, and therefore I believe that it is clear there is some potential in anyone.

A very different idea to many people is what gives their own life value. Many times this decision is based solely off of what has been done and not the idea of potential. For a majority, especially upon reflection of past events, the value of their life is assessed by the level of satisfaction they feel with how they lived it. In fact when I first read this question this is the answer I came up with. However, while satisfaction is very important, this satisfaction should come with the effect of their actions not the actions themselves. We should be satisfied with our potential and our former actions’ potential, not just our former accomplishments.


I believe the idea of potential is vitally important in life’s value because it concerns a positive impact on the future. What someone did in the past has no importance if it does not have an effect on the future. However, I do not believe that anyone can argue anything has absolutely no value on the future. There is always a way to argue some later effect of an action or decision.

What potential also implies is that just because someone did something of a greater magnitude does not make them more valuable than someone who performed an act of a lesser scale. A billionaire can donate her fortune to helping AIDS affected countries while a poor man may spend his Sundays playing basketball with inner-city children. Both people have inspired and changed lives. Life takes on a higher and higher value as we achieve a greater and greater amount of our potential. Therefore it does not matter just how much we do, but how much we do of what we can.


Our own interpretation of what gives a life value is determined late in childhood in what Piaget would call the Concrete Stage of Intellectual Development. This is when a child becomes aware of the thoughts and feeling of others. Like when Lizabeth suddenly sees that, “The witch was no longer a witch but only a broken old woman who had dared to create beauty in the midst of ugliness and sterility” (Collier 638), we start to understand that everyone around us is just as real as we know ourselves to be. Initially we may not be aware of this assessment of value. In fact, one only becomes aware of this assessment through introspective thought and reflection. This is another reason why we must consider these questions of life’s value and meaning now.

Reaching our potential is what gives life meaning. The desire which leads to future happiness and feelings of fulfillment is the desire to experience all that we can and through this get closer and closer to our potential. I have said that the meaning of life is love. However, love is not as much the meaning of life as the motivator for giving meaning to life. A love for other people, other cultures, knowledge, wisdom, understanding, and fulfillment drives us to search for new experiences and make a positive impact on the future. Love can be a very broad emotional descriptor that essentially expresses the feeling of some form of desire. Perhaps desire is a much clearer word to use than love. Without desire there is no action, there is no satisfaction. Desire drives us to cause change and therefore find meaning in our own lives.


Despite this assessment of life’s meaning many people still create a lists of things they must do in order to be satisfied with their life. I must admit that I am somewhat guilty of this too. However, I attempt to take these goals and turn them into desires that require a constant fulfillment throughout life. In this way these goals do not require me to live a long life in order to complete them. My life could end now and I could say that I have achieved these goals. These goals require a constant effort that may change forms throughout my experiences but still remain ambitions all the way through life.

My first goal is to love and be loved. This goal combines many different elements. As a part of this I want to feel the entire emotional spectrum. I want to know what it feels like to lose and what it feels like to gain. I want to experience what it feels like to give and what it feels like to take. I only have one life to live; I want to say that I felt all I could at the end of it. I enjoy feeling a sense of belonging and camaraderie among my peers and even those who are older and younger than I am. I also cherish the feelings of affection and attachment that one feels in an emotional relationship. When I am older I want to care for my children and see that they appreciate what I have done for them. Later when my children have children I want a similar feeling. I also want to love those that I do not understand. This is probably the most challenging aspect of this goal. Many times it is difficult to identify with those that come from a different background and therefore think very differently than me. However, I am learning to appreciate them as much as I do those that I can agree with. I may never achieve a level of care and appreciation for those I do not agree with that is equal my level of care and appreciation for those that I do agree with but I want to make those levels as equal as possible. This is important to me because feeling at peace with others greatly contributes to my own happiness. When I am not at ease with other people, I am not at ease with myself. To love and be loved benefits humanity in the same way. Love between people of differences promotes understanding and peace. Love between friends, family, and spouses promotes unity. Unity allows our actions to work with each other rather than against one another. Unity also gives support to those who are weak and helps those in times of need.


My second goal is to positively affect those younger than me. Currently I achieve this through helping freshmen adjust to a new school with Link Crew. Later when I am in college I may achieve this through giving advice to high school students looking towards college. This goal is broad enough that whatever course I later take in life, whether it’s having kids, adopting, or maybe neither, I can still fulfill it. Helping my kids learn how to live in the world and later passing on my knowledge from life to them will impact their lives. I can affect my grandchildren by offering them a different place from home that they can visit and telling them my wonderful long drawn out stories. Personally this offers me a feeling of satisfaction knowing that I am impacting another life and working on my potential. Telling someone something I have learned and knowing they are listening gives me a feeling of purpose and assures me that my life has meaning. As for humanity, I am spreading knowledge and wisdom that will allow younger generations to learn from my own mistakes. In addition, I am promoting a lifestyle which I believe is beneficial to the quality of life. Wisdom is a very powerful tool. If I can help pass this on to someone else I help them to face the world with an understanding that I did not have at that point in my life. They are then able to live an even more productive and fulfilling life.

Another goal of my life is to aid those less fortunate. This can be anything from donating money to building houses with Habitat for Humanity to teaching someone a valuable lesson that I have learned that they have not yet realized. This goal is the most consistent throughout life compared to my other four goals. I work towards this aim with more than just the usual acts that come to mind (i.e. soup kitchens, donations, food drives, and blood donation). Just talking to people and passing on my wisdom and knowledge helps those who have not had the opportunity to experience what I have experienced and take away from it what I have. In addition, offering a different perspective on a conflict helps someone caught in a dilemma. Listening to someone who has something to say and feels as though they are never heard is also a part of this ambition. From these acts I gain a similar personal satisfaction that I get from affecting those younger than me. I know that I have made an impact on someone else’s life and that without me the condition of at least that one person would be different. This knowledge contributes to my feeling of purpose. The most obvious part of this goal is its benefit to humanity. This ambition betters the condition of others and possibly inspires others to do the same. People are heard, cared for, and taught.


In addition, I want to gain a greater understanding of life and its elements. This encompasses anything from an understanding of the laws of physics and mathematics to less concrete ideas like how to interact with others. Many of the lessons I learn in school fascinate me. I feel satisfied knowing I understand something new, especially when I can use this knowledge to teach others. I also enjoy being able to interact with others more harmoniously. This training not only comes from the academic side of school, but from the social aspect of school, sports, Boy Scouts, friendships, and nature. Every part of life offers some lesson if we are willing to listen. I want to become in tune with these lessons and take as much from what I have done as I can. The next time I am faced with the dilemma of how honest to be with someone when they come to me asking about a personal flaw I want to react in a way that is better for both me and the other person than the last time I was faced with the dilemma. The ability to have more harmonious interactions with others and the ability to pass on knowledge to others both benefit humanity. To quote myself just now, “a more informed citizen makes for a better republic (sounds like a founding father does it not?).” If I can learn more I will be able to spread that knowledge to many other people and improve their quality of life.

My final goal is to achieve a feeling of success in my own efforts. Note the phrase “a feeling of.” I included that phrase because success can change its meaning easily. What is more important to me is that I feel competent and able at least in some efforts. For me success is measured in improvement. So I may not be the best runner in the world, but I have improved and in that way I feel success. And surely there is a feeling of success in the grades that I earn. I also feel a good deal of success in the friendships I have made. I have moved over 550 miles and yet I have friends here that I am much closer with than I was with friends in Cleveland. Later this feeling of success may come from my job and my relationship. If I find someone whom I can live with harmoniously, who cares for me because of who I am, and enjoys my company, I will certainly feel success. As an older person this feeling of success may come from knowing I raised my children to be smart, pensive, and hard working. I gain personally with a high self esteem and feeling of self worth. These qualities allow me to be outgoing and hardworking. Humanity benefits from this goal because as I feel success I am motivated to continue my actions. As I feel success from helping others, teaching those younger than me, and passing on knowledge, I am more likely to continue these actions. In addition, positive, outgoing people tend to have a positive effect on the mood and outlook of those around them.


So now I have probably bored you to death. 2,795 words is a lot of writing (I REALLY apologize on this one). However, for some reason I did not feel like I could end this blog without a conclusion. So here it is. Look for the potential in your life and the potential in others. Try every day to realize the value of the lives of the people around you. But most importantly ask these questions about life’s value and meaning of yourself. As I said, these questions are best considered now while you have the time to asses who you are and make a change.