Potential

What do we see when we see our children? We see potential, and that is a beautiful thing. Potential is a song that can be sung, a dance that can be danced, a flight that can be soared and a whole epic that can be written.  The life of a child holds the ability to realize so many dreams and the whole world is just waiting for them to come and explore it.

Yesterday I sat there watching Kabir playing the guitar and in my mind I already had him standing on a brightly lit stage, surrounded by thousands of excited fans, who hung on to every note he played. Now, I know that is just a flight of fantasy and he may never become "The Edge" or a Bruce Springsteen or even anything close, but it is my hope that he will pursue something in his life to an extent that he truly masters it and gets recognition as someone who made a difference to the craft. His young mind holds so much potential that it leaves me breathless.

But that also made me wonder- why is it that we only think of children when we think of potential? Why is it that as soon as adulthood settles in, all talk turns to "there was time when I really wanted to...."? Isn't is paradoxical that  we give up so easily on our dreams at a time in our lives when we have far more control of our destinies than we did as children? So what if we do not become maestros or world famous writers, but surely we can enjoy the process. We must first dare to explore our own potential before we ask our children to take the plunge.