I ran into this quote recently and it lodged itself in my head:
“Someone once told me the definition of hell; on your last day on earth, the person you could have become will meet the person you became.”
Wow. Ouch.
As a child and young woman I was frequently told I had “potential.” I strived desperately to meet that expectation, but I didn’t live up to the potential adults saw in me. I should have become a doctor or lawyer, which is what I thought people meant when they said that.
More likely, adults were backhandedly commenting my utter lack of interest in practicing any skill beyond basic competence. Because once I understand something, I am happy to start learning something new.
It’s taken me a long time to come to terms with “not living up to my potential.” Potential is someone else’s idea of who you should be. It’s a first class ticket to mental illness.
If I were a kid these days, the school psychologist would determine that I am autistic or AuHD. There would be understanding accommodations made, rather than comments about my potential. I’d be called neurospicy instead of gifted.
Neurospicy is fun! My broad curiosity is how I became a creative dilettante. I can do anything well enough but nothing exceptionally. And that is SO GOOD for me.
I want to participate in everything so that I can gather experience points, encountering the details to know the gestalt. I might not stick around after I understand what’s going on, but I offer my enthusiastic energy while I am there.
On my best days, “the person I became” lives with childlike wonder. I notice beauty in details, catch on to patterns and changes, put together ideas like puzzles. My brain sings with discovery and experiments. With great delight, I share what I know.
On good days, I use my catalog of skills to get through tasks. I can GSD like nobody’s business. Tick, tick, tick down the to-do list. Not extraordinary, but done with gratification in my ability to accomplish the ordinary.
On bad days, I throw inner tantrums about not living up to my potential, while on the outside I dissociate and withdraw until wonder returns (or Tod entices me back into the world with snacks).
Of all the potential Kristens, I desired to be the one that was socially adept and charismatic. That one embodies something that I actually hoped for. I think she would have been able to reach farther and live up to the potential that adults saw in me.
So I guess the “could have become” person I will meet on my deathbed is one who focussed on one topic, gained expertise, and did it with social graces. She would have had big impact- resolved conflict, reversed climate crisis, saved the world.
However much that Kristen seems worthy, I love the Kristen that I am; I hold my own against the one I might have been. No deathbed regrets for me.
