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Wasted Potential.

"I want you to be the very best version of yourself that you can be."

"What if this is the best version?"

Lady Bird, 2017. Mother and daughter. 

"You have so much potential" or "you had so much potential"; there are so many ways to package a person's disappointment in the way you are. Of course, there are times when this comes with goodness and sparks motivation. I am not talking about those times.

"I am disappointed in you," was all my ninth-grade biology teacher said after glaring at me the moment she entered my class to distribute the answer sheets. I did horribly. I hadn't throughout the entire year, scoring grades just off by half a mark of the total.

I am not surprised she was disappointed. I didn't try to tell her I was on bed rest with swollen tonsils. I don't know why. I was just so shocked that she could say it regardless. Maybe she was right. But it felt crushing.

What if I hadn't been that sick and got those grades? Did it really warrant that response?

I don't think so, especially coming from a teacher.

The term potential has annoyed me since birth. Every parent-teacher meeting, this word would come up whether I did poorly, well, or mediocrely.

"She has great potential," they would repeat incessantly. It irked me. It seemed like they would never be satisfied with whatever I achieved, especially when the boy who scored 79/80 in math was asked to do better for the boards. I had received lower scores.

Potential is all we are. As kids, I could soothe the disappointment by saying I was just a child. But now, it's supposed to be within my grasp, right? This potential of being something great should evolve into skills soon enough.

But it hasn't. And somehow, as I become saddened by this, I do nothing. I don't mean that I should embark on an endless pursuit of perfection or achievement.

Contentment should arise from who we are. Acceptance and love for every version of ourselves are crucial, given the ease of human fallibility.

Vincent van Gogh once said, "If I am worth anything later, I am worth something now. For wheat is wheat, even if people think it is grass in the beginning." This quote was from a letter to his brother, detailing his struggle with his value as an artist and the lack of recognition in the present moment.

I will love you as grass and wheat. If you don't become wheat, you are still grass, you know. And wheat is just one type of grass anyway. Your worth is intrinsic. It's inherent; whether some part of you isn't recognized, it has always been there.

In all this contemplation of potential and what we are not becoming, I believe my potential cannot be wasted until something dies, whether within me or my being. Even then, miracles can happen. I can be revived.

I am alive. I am not wasted. Yes, I am going to be somebody, but I am somebody now.

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