She's Not Living up to Her Potential

"She's not living up to her potential," teachers told my mother.  What does that mean? And, what does it mean for a person to have potential?  And not live up to it?

Maybe the teacher meant that I could conform more thoroughly to the school rules. I could behave exactly as proscribed; I could do all homework as assigned; I could excel in all testing.  I could wear appropriate and complimentary clothing, I could always have a proper expression, treat those around me politely, always say the right things. Good grades, politeness--living up to my potential.

I found, as a student in elementary school, that if I behaved appropriately for the teachers, my behavior was far from popular among the students. Going against the grain created popularity and garnered admiration.  But a child who looked to peers for recognition was considered a "bad" child.

What am I getting at?

Lately, I've been told twice that I'm manipulative--once from a foe, once from a friend. After thinking about this, I decided that I was not manipulative--that I was well behaved! I also realized that being a very well behaved student in school (living up to your potential) turns you into a manipulative bitch as an adult, if you continue that same behavior. You become Eddie Haskell--an ass-kisser--or Ted Bundy--a guy who is well behaved on the outside, but has a different plan inside. You develop co-dependancy, the need to please everyone around you at great cost to yourself.  But isn't that what we're taught in school?  As children in our families? We're taught to never say no, to always do what you're told, to go with the flow.

So because I absorbed my lessons in school, and pleased my teachers and parents by living up to my potential, I am now a confused adult.

I know that I still have potential, all living things do. I have a potential life different than what I have now.  Where I am now results from being a good child, when I needed to learn how to be a good adult--I need to live up to my adult potential.

Adults who live up to their potential are not even similar to children who do the same.  Adults must be strong, think through all influences, say no a lot.  They must not try to please people just by doing what they are told. They must fight the establishment and force their way to the top.

Why, then, are we taught the opposite in school?  After all, we become adults while still in public school, still under the instruction to do all we are told in order to live up to our potential.

I just attended my daughter's graduation.  During this ceremony, the now young adults were praised for their consistent good grades and their ability to please teachers.  Some of the students apparently never said no, and served well in school by doing everything asked of them.

And we wonder about teenage pregnancy?  These girls who are taught to please, to be good children in school, have adult lives outside of school. These adult girls are asked for many things they should not agree to. Girls who please in school by never saying no have a very hard time learning that it is okay to say no to sex, drugs, and alcohol.  After all, they are constantly praised for doing everything they are told. my daughter had only one class where they were told to say no--Senior Seminar. But while they were being told about the evils of sex and drugs--some of them already parents--they were expected to follow all the rules in the classroom.  This makes no sense.

Honestly, why didn't someone tell me when I graduated from High School that living up to my potential now meant something completely different? Even now, at Age 51, I am a great student, but everything else I must do is a mystery to me, and a shock when I try to apply school rules to my work. 

I can't go to a corporation and try to do everything I am told.  There is no way to please everyone. I can't go out with a man and do everything he says. I can't address conflict by sending my co-workers to the office, and just avoiding the conflict altogether. I can't tell on someone who treated me badly, and expect them to get a talking-to from the boss.

So what must I do now?  

I must discover my present potential.  I am unemployed.  I am 51-years-old. My daughter is going to college next month.  I can't pay my bills.  What is my potential, and how can I live up to it?  By asking this question, am I just making the same mistakes again, and applying old school rules to a problem?

If so, it is the only way I know. I learned my lessons well.

Potential life is everywhere.

Resting inside the dry seed, clinging to your walls within a fluffy nest, floating through the air, waiting invisibly on the door knob, sticking to a slender piece of your cat's fur, percolating in your blood system. For most potential life (called PL in this blog), all it needs is a nudge, and off it goes.

"Life finds a way," the wise Dr. Ian Malcolm said in Jurassic Park. And it does.  To find the PL in your bedroom, just leave a bowl of water on your bureau for a month. To reveal the PL flying and floating in the air, create a backyard pond. To activate the PL waiting on your doorknob, grasp it with a sweaty hand.

In short, just add water. On your bureau, the bowl of water will brim with the colors of mold and algae, your backyard pool will gain insects and water plants and even ducks. Your sweaty palm will begin to grow microscopic, uncomfortable buddies who will use you as their host.

That's what what this blog is about. The PL everywhere, and who, what, where, when, and why it is. I will muse on the PL all around me, the life it produces, and what we can learn from it.

This blog is fiction, although it is based upon my experiences--obviously--how else could I write it? But any resemblance to real people, situations, places, bacteria or PL is completely accidental.

So let's enjoy this together.  And share your PL experiences with me!