Unlimited Potential

by Gregory Allen Butler

Unlimited potential is our birthright. For we are sons and daughters of the infinite and our true essence is consciousness. Our only limitation can come from our thinking.

Look at Helen Keller. She was as wild as any animal in the Amazon rainforest before Anne Sullivan was able to help her make the association of water with the word, water. That was the beginning for her of language and rational thought. That was the beginning of a whole new world of possibilities.

Blind and deaf, once she discovered thought, nothing could hold her back. Contemplate her words about life: "Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. Security does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than exposure."

Is it the nature of our mind to expand and forever grow into new possibilities or is it to retreat into safety? It seems to me that the natural state is to go forward into the unknown like Columbus sailing on the open seas. But we have so much conditioned thinking that tells us otherwise--that we have to be content, practical, reasonable, realistic and careful. These are the voices of over-protective parents from when we were four-years-old.

Too often when someone gets a creative idea people will call him or her a dreamer. But this creativity is not dreaming-this is awakening out of a dream.

The purpose of life for the unawakened is to awaken. Unfortunately, most people go through an entire lifetime in an unawakened state. They never suspect that they have something special to contribute to the world. It stems from the way they're programmed.

It seems too often that people don't believe that they have the capacity to realize their dreams. Somehow they buy into the thought that they are limited and incapable. What is really going on is that they are afraid of failing. They don't want to put it out on the line for the world to see.

I once heard about a tuba player who enjoyed playing the tuba despite the fact that he was a terrible tuba player. He didn't care that he was bad. He cared more about enjoying himself. People started to enjoy his enjoyment. People started inviting him to their parties for him to play his tuba. He was really good at being bad.

That is a refreshing example of how to live. No fears of failure and embarrassment--just a passion for life, permission to be bad.

Why aren't more people like that? Is everyone recovering from humiliation? Do people, once humiliated, vow never to let that happen again?

We are not here to stay within the bounds of finite thinking. We are not here to stay within the lines of a coloring book. No, we are here to break down the fences of limited thinking and set off to discover the uniqueness of our soul's possibility.

Expression, vision, new direction--these are our destiny. We are not a herd of cattle grazing in grasslands until we are fat enough for slaughter. But far too many people live their lives as if that was the case-doing what they are told. Step here. Stand in line there. Sign on the dotted line.

Everything we do in life gives scope to self-expression. The words we use, the clothes we wear, even the people we associate with and the food we eat.

What is it you are trying to say? What is the message of your life? Do you want to communicate the infinite possibility of life? Do you want to express originality or do you want to repeat the tried and true? Why would anybody want to retreat from originality?

Trust yourself. Listen to your own advice. Do not retreat from the genius that lies within you. You are a giant amongst pygmies. Do what you choose to do. Don't look back. What is stopping you? Is it your life or not? Make it count for something. Don't look back at the end of life to discover in hindsight that life was an opportunity.

Emerson said "Absolve you to yourself and you shall have the suffrage of the world." So be true to yourself. Whose rules are you here to play by anyway? We are not cowards fleeing before a revolution. No, we are the revolution. The history of the world tells us that life is nothing but a series of revolutions-revolutions in thought, in perception, in understanding. The man of convention is nothing but an idolater of the old. A clinging to the past is a recipe for suffering.

If you want to be great then do what concerns you. Your genius isn't going to manifest so that you can duplicate someone else's experiment of life. Celebrate your life by living it fully. Be faithful to your own inner voice. Mother Theresa didn't become Mother Theresa by following the voice of Donald Trump.

We limit ourselves by bowing to what others expect. Meeting expectations is boring. Surprise somebody. Surprise yourself.