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On Living Up to Potential
Being alone at sea, one has lots of time for self-examination, and, of course, critique. In his Preface to a Dictionary of the English Language, Samuel Johnson opines that no man is satisfied with himself “because he has done much, but because he can conceive little.” Now that’s something to ponder while paddling alone in a kayak in the ocean.
Far too many people, myself included, are too quick to become satisfied with their efforts and the accomplishments brought forth by those efforts. Dr. Johnson is also credited with saying something to the effect that there is no good writing; there is only good re-writing (this from a guy who wrote Rasselas in one week so he could pay for his mother’s funeral). Most writers would agree that when they make a second attempt at a piece of writing it ends up both shorter – and better. The same goes for painting. I live with an artist, whose first attempt at painting a portrait never comes close to the quality of all subsequent attempts at the same portrait. Such examples, I think, are a proof in microcosm of the benefit of experience (especially the experience of failure). The oft-quoted Franklin P. Jones once said: “Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.” If we never attempt anything at which we are likely to fail, we’ll probably never fail, but we’ll never succeed at much either. Unfortunately many of us, in any given form of endeavor sometimes “can conceive little” and allow ourselves to be content with at best mediocrity. To paraphrase Socrates: The mediocre life is not worth living.
Parents who think the most important thing they can do for their children is simply to encourage them to be happy probably need to reassess their idea of what it is that makes most children happy. Too often, children (and their parents) mistake happiness as being able to go through life without stress or expectations. When parents do not encourage their children to compete, they actually do them a great disservice. Everyone is familiar with overbearing parents who push their children toward heights they can never reach. That such parents are trying to make up for their own deficiencies is obvious, but the opposite approach (never encouraging children to live up to whatever potential God has given them) is equally bad, and leads to the acceptance of mediocrity by the children. To paraphrase Alfred Lord Tennyson: it’s better to have tried and failed than never to have tried at all. Kids who never try to compete in anything, and the parents who never encourage them, could very well live to regret it, and spend their lives envying those who were willing to work hard and compete.
(On such things does one ruminate while paddling a one-person kayak miles out in the ocean - closer to God.)
