Article October 11, 1999 Issue

Unlimited potential is yours now

If God can do it, so can you.

Richard Bergenheim

I'm sorry to report that during grade school, my quarterly report card often had a note to the effect that I was not working up to my full potential. I don't know if you ever had such a comment on your report card, but I must say that this kind of comment is not pleasing to parents.

In my case, it overshadowed anything else on that card that would otherwise have elicited smiles and a happy celebration at dinner that night. I once tried explaining to my parents that if my teacher had written that I was working at my full potential, they would have been insulted by that insinuation. As I said, I tried that once.

This idea of optimizing our potential has become quite an industry today. I think an awful lot of people must have had the same kind of comments on their report cards that I had on mine. If you've ever tried to catch the news on TV early on a Saturday morning, you've probably found yourself stuck in "infomercial land." Seemingly on every channel someone is trying to sell you a faster way to slice vegetables or to maximize your potential. All for six easy payments.