What do we mean when we talk about our potential? Modern life involves a lot of thinking about this idea. There is a big focus on pursuing self- growth, on dreaming big and doing whatever we can to achieve the visions we've set for ourselves. We believe that people are unique and special in their talents and that we must celebrate this. What each person's potential is, exactly, might be unclear, and yet constant striving for self- betterment consumes the thinking of those living in the modern era.

Modern life demands this kind of thinking, and we've come to take it for granted. Not surprisingly, few people question the notion of potential: who, after all, does not want to grow, or not take advantage of their gifts and talents? Who does not want to see themselves as being limitless in their capacity for achievement? And so an important part of life becomes a matter of consistently working to achieve our individual potentialities, though often with little reflection on what our respective journeys are really for.

In his book Missing Out: In Praise of the Unlived Life, the British psychoanalyst Adam Phillips writes, “The myth of our potential can make of our lives a perpetual falling- short, a continual and continuing loss […] though at its best it lures us into the future, but without letting us wonder why such lures are required.” There is an allure to our belief in potential, allowing individuals to live in what could be, rather than in what is. The person in pursuit of potential is in a constant state of self- discovery, and so can be excused for being restless, never really slowing down or making serious decisions as to what they want to do in life.

As Phillips suggests, it is possible— perhaps likely, even— that our wished- for lives, centered on this belief in potential, limit self- examination in important ways. To dedicate time and space for critical self- examination in the present is hard work. This involves the confrontation of self, which can be slow, frustrating and painful, but there is little need for this kind of inner dialogue when the modern world always points us toward the future.