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Location: Salt Lake City, UT
I have an uncanny ability to remember where I was and what I was doing on such and such a date in the past. As an athlete, I had a very predictable life. Life follows the seasons, the snow, and the circus of training camps and competitions. Each year was similar to the previous.
Now that I have (figuratively) paddled away from that ocean, and left the tide and rhythm of that life behind, my life is more like paddling a river: I never know what will be ‘round the next bend. Sometimes life moves slowly and the water is flat, other times the current is strong and dramatic. Occasionally, there will be rapids, which I must avoid by changing course. Unlike the endless expanse of the ocean’s horizon, which is stunning in its own way, the river and its banks always present new beauty and dimension.
During the calm periods, when the water is flat, I find it interesting to think back upon where I was one, two, five years ago. Remembering the place is easy for me, since I have an affinity for geography. And I can easily remember why I was there and what I was doing. The difficult part of the puzzle is trying to relate with whom I was at that moment in time. Whether we acknowledge it or not, we are all constantly changing in reaction to our experiences. While empathy comes naturally to me – placing myself behind others’ eyes, in their shoes, their lives, to see the world from a different perspective – my younger selves evade me. What reasoning stood beneath my decisions? How and why did I perceive ideas, people, and the world differently than I do today? This is less an exercise in regret as much as it is a process of evaluating self-actuation.
But, if I may really delve more deeply into the idea of the psyche and personal development, I must pose this question: Are we any less whole today then we will be tomorrow? Do we really grow outwards through addition, or do we evolve, suggesting that we improve what we have? My attraction to Russian and Soviet literature is that (some of) it is rooted in the idea that we are products and amalgamations of all of our experiences. I relate to this. Every experience that I have, whether it be good or bad, I appreciate, because it contributes to my growth and evolution as a person.
Answering my question of what makes us less today than whom we will become tomorrow, though: I don’t know. It is a question of quantifying our potential as people. My opinion on that is that our potential is limitless, not only as individuals, but together, as a society of individuals. There is nothing we cannot do.
I was going to write with certainty that the difference between today and tomorrow is that with an additional day, I’m likelier to have had an eye-opening experience, showing me a greater picture of my potential, but that isn’t true for most people. When we are children, life is limitless. It is as we grow into adulthood that most people temper their dreams with practicality until they no longer dream of what they could become, but instead fear what could become of what they have.
So this has now turned into an exploration of self-actuation: the theory that people are motivated by ambition and realizing (or actuating) their full potential. But do we ever reach our potential? Is there one person who can unequivocally say that they have reached the summit of their development, that they have satisfied all of their desires and ambitions? Isn’t that counter-intuitive? Wouldn’t that be a horrible place to be, to have no more potential? I don’t believe it. I know this, because, as an athlete, your potential is endless. Certainly there are limiting factors, but as long as you train, and train right, and with advances in technology, you will improve. It’s an endless treadmill, a hamster on a wheel. That major limiting factor is age, of course, and the potential for injury.
So then the question really is moot. We never reach our potential. We only reach ever greater proportions of an unquantifiable self. As we grow, our potential grows, too. We will never get that carrot on a stick. We will always be able to improve. We can always meet another person, who has the potential to change our lives completely. We can always travel somewhere new, leading us to new perspective on our place in the world. The world is set up as an amusement park possessing infinite rides.
The joy must be found in the journey, no matter what your goals are, because reaching your goals will produce only momentary and fleeting happiness.
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