On Unfulfilled Potentials

(Nothing much going on and I'm lacking in inspiration, so here's a post I wrote in my IF blog he he...)

 

Was talking to my closest friends about different topics and we ended up talking about unfulfilled potentials. One friend said that when she saw great pianists, she always wondered what would have happened if she had been more focused on learning the piano when she was younger. She said that as she grew older, in a way it got a little tougher to accept the fact that she may not be fulfilling her potential as a pianist because she had less and less time to reach that dream. In the past if she saw great pianists, she felt more inspired and encouraged to follow that dream because it seemed that there was still ample time to do so. However, she also said that hopefully as she grew older, she would be wiser to accept the facts about unfulfilled potentials in any area of life. 

 

I suddenly started thinking about infertility and motherhood. I told her that for me, motherhood was similar to her pianist dream. I don't actually know for sure how much "potential" I have to be a mother, but it was a dream I had for a certain period of time.

 

In my simplistic mind, when talking about unfulfilled potentials, you'd either have to do something about it or let it go. Letting it go also means accepting the fact that at the end of the day, maybe you'll only have fulfilled your potential until P instead of Z. In another life (so to speak), you may have made different choices and you may be able to fulfill that particular potential fully (or in a higher level than this life), but we've only got one life to live, so that's that. And we'll never know for sure anyway if in another life we'll be able to reach that potential more fully.

 

In my family, my brother is the more musical one. He took organ lessons when he was younger and the teacher said he was talented. He was in the course for years and then he stopped for a while, then continued it again for a while and for a period of time, my Mom was feeling sad because she felt that he could do more with his musical talents. Then when he was at the uni, he picked up the guitar and bass guitar and nowadays he plays bass guitar at church. In another life, he may be able to perform in stages or produce music by himself. Who knows? But this is his only life and he's made choices and he loves playing guitar/bass guitar at church. 

 

When speaking about possibilities and unfulfilled potentials, there are too many unknown factors. R2 and I have made our choices and we have to live with it. In another life, we may be trying out something else at the moment, but in this life, I'm content to be where I am - even though every now and then I'm reminded of "my unfulfilled potential" that may be painful, but I'm THANKFUL for the lessons that IF has brought, because through IF I'm given a chance to learn more:

 

1. How to love myself despite myself.

2. That God's grace is enough.

3. More than ever before I know that God understands my pains and He cares, even though I've yelled at Him and accused Him of being unjust. 

4. That I've married the right guy.

5. The painful lesson of letting go and letting God.

 

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Kids and Their Potential

I must say that after helping out at the daycare for almost 2 weeks now, it's been quite an experience. Every day is different and sometimes in the mornings everything can be pretty quiet, but then something happens during the day - there've been wonderful moments, fun times, heartwarming moments as well as exasperating ones. Dealing with little humans is definitely TOUGH, esp. 'coz some kids can't get along well if they're put together in the same room - it's understandable given their different personalities, but they have to learn to behave and control themselves so that they can live in harmony with other people later on.

Today there was a little fight between two boys and one of them cried. The guilty one apologized and the other one accepted the apology in between sobs and watery eyes. I was amazed at how easily the crying boy accepted the apology...and it reminded me of my own childhood where I held grudges so easily due to my sensitive nature - what a difference!

But then again everybody is different and they have different "weaknesses" to handle. Some kids at the daycare are so easy to handle. They never give us any problems and they cooperate very well to the schedule. Some are tougher to handle and that makes me realize even more how VERY HARD it is to raise kids (not just feeding them). You've gotta know each of their personalities and you've gotta know how to handle each of them. I've been a bit tired this week 'coz I have to learn to know when to be "strict" and when to be "less strict" with them (I'm still confused where the line is). It's easier to deal with the kids one-on-one, but once they're playing together, anything can happen!

It's not easy for me to learn to be strict and I'm still lousy at it. I don't know why but when I tried being stern to stop them from playing around too much, even when I gave them my stern stare and I didn't smile along when they kept on playing around, they didn't obey me as well as they obeyed my colleagues. Crazy thing was that I told R2 about this problem and I showed him my stern stare, but it only made him laugh like crazy. GRRRRRRRRRRR...He said I was too sweet to look stern. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRR...in other cases I'd consider that a compliment, but this would be problematic if I can't make them feel that I have some authority there. But anyway, I'm learning the art of being strict bit by bit ha ha ha ha ha...

I remember when I was a private English tutor, one day I got a problematic student who just didn't want to cooperate. When I asked him to read some text or do his tasks, he'd just smile at me playfully and disobey me. After some time, their parents decided to put him into a kind of language course 'coz I just couldn't handle the brat well enough to make him do what I wanted him to do.

One thing I realize even more from this training is that each child has different potential. I met one boy who wowed me yesterday 'coz he could create VERY creative and complex Lego "star ships" (without looking at any guidebook whatsoever - he just did it on his own in the playroom and he shared his creations with other kids). He's either almost 7 y.o. or he's already 7 years old. I went speechless when I saw his creations. I myself, even now, can't imagine making creations like that with Lego pieces. It's just beyond me...

I was talking to my colleague about this and she said that the boy's grandpa loved creating stuff and he'd been showing the grandson how to create stuff when they spent time together. Ahhhaaaa...now I understand where it all came from...he's probably gifted in that area (3D), but he's also got plenty of exercise with his grandpa. I can actually imagine him in the future, creating real 3D stuff - either buildings or sophisticated planes or whatever. I remembered to give him a compliment on his skills today (yeah, this is also something I'm learning to say to each kid after they do something well). I hope he realized that I really meant what I said. :-D

Anyway, that's the update about my training. I'm gonna blog-hop later this week.