I’ve heard my entire life, since I can remember, that I’m wasting my potential. But what was that potential? Was it not those people’s expectations of me? They weren’t my expectations. I like to learn new things and move on. Moving on doesn’t meet expectations very often.
“What a waste.”
A waste of what? Energy, time, potential?
If I don’t want to do the follow-through, I won’t. Does the potential end once the follow-through has been accomplished? Yeah, I guess it does. It’s no longer just a thought, an idea. It’s tangible.
Does creating the idea but not following through equal failure? In a capitalist society, sure!
So where do I fit in as an ideas person? Someone who chases, looks, but doesn’t catch.
I’m not sure yet. All I know in this moment is that others’ expectations of me can no longer be my driving force to accomplish things. My potential is mine alone to do whatever I want with. Meeting other people’s expectations doesn’t serve me, and doesn’t let me live my own life. It forces me to live theirs which is impossible. I’ll never succeed.
I’m not a failure because I didn’t meet expectations or lived up to some sort of imaginary potential in other people’s minds.
My worth is not based on my productivity, how much money I make, how successful I am in the capitalist cog. That’s not for me. I’m returning the ladder I was given at birth. The rungs are splintered and broken apart and my hands have bled too much trying to climb it. I thought the ladder was there to support me but no, it was just dragging me along, demanding more and more.
It’s not lonely at the bottom. The people still climbing, the ones at the top, can’t see the ground. And that’s okay. Let them have the clouds. There’s plenty of room on the ground.
Repeat after me: My worth is not based on my productivity, potential, or success.
I am not other people’s expectations.
heyfriesen blog 
I came to this same conclusion in a different process. Because I slowly became more disabled by pain and vertigo I could not be the productive person I was. So I had to re-define my self-identity and worth based on some other factor (s).
But I got a whole lot of ‘Its such a waste that you can’t be all the things you could have been if not for your disability’. And I had one neurologist say it was ‘such a pity someone so intelligent is struck down with such pain in the prime of their productive years’. yay me. That made me feel like crap. But society and its capitalistic view of productivity and self-worth do not serve a person well when they can no longer perform and function at the level society demands. And that will destroy your self-worth- and then you have to build it all back up again.
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