He'd sewed a holy relic on his cap;
His wallet lay before him on his lap,
Brimful of pardons come from Rome all hot.
He had the same small voice a goat has got.
~The Canterbury Tales

Today has me dwelling on the power of potential. Why do so many of us sit on ours’. Many people see it as a nest egg to be used later. The question becomes how much “later” do any of us have? Are we letting fear, apathy and life’s many distractions stop us from becoming the person we should be? We don’t live in a time that fosters thought and art like the Renaissance. So if your talent does not happen to fall into “useful” areas like computer programming or landscape architecture then you’re told to keep a day job.

So in the end what do we have to show for it? I can pretty well guarantee we’d all be happy making 25 grand a year if we could do what we absolutely love for a living. If I could write all day and know a steady paycheck was coming I would jump in head first. What’s your passion? Do you want to paint or teach scuba diving? I’m sure we all have something we feel an inherent call to do.

I guess it is days like this when I stop to reflect on why so many of us do a job we barely tolerate to make a wage that barely gets us by. If going to work every day makes you miserable you should at least get rich from it. Even then I suspect most of us would still wonder “what if?” I believe there is a better life out there but finding the resolve and the will to live it will probably challenge most of us until the day we die.