April 3rd, 2008

On weekdays when I wake up I'm usually in too much of a hurry to think about anything except getting shaved, showered, dressed, and on the road to work. Time is always of the essence.

But, until recently, on the weekends I often woke to these ever-more-familiar dark feelings of regret. Before a few weeks ago, with ever more depth and regularity, this mood was the first taste of the new hours of my Saturdays and Sundays.

A sadness ... a melancholy.

Maybe you feel it too: A low-grade panic that all we are capable of doing in this life is not being realised. It isn’t so much that we have accomplished nothing at all, it's just that as we grow older and the lines of our lives deepen into recognizable paths (and as that wonderful swirling chaos of Great Potential becomes a pattern of familiarity we could look back on), options that once were open to us are quietly closing. Doors that we could have opened if life were longer are being locked and chained.

But another realisation has dawned on me lately that has been part of the reason why I am slowly healing from this darkness: All thoughtful, sentient people seem to feel this regret once they are past their early adulthood. All thinking beings who mature into fully developed adults start with the shock realisation that, not only will they not be able to do everything, they won't be able to do everything they are capable of.

Some respond in anger. Some, like me, respond in sadness (with a tinge of desperation). Some people are spurred into a frenzy of activity to try to claw back as much potential as possible.

But whatever your response, if you learn you are not all you could be ... remember you are among good company.

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