The answer to this question is that we do not know fully what our potential is. If we know what our potential is, we would have chosen right profession or career etc at the outset itself. Generally through trial and error method one tries to find out their potential. That is why we grope in the dark and try to find out where we should put our potential to use. We do lot of permutations and combinations. Potential should be made use of wherever it suits the best in order to maximize efficiency. Of course, we know that there are admirable potentialities in every human being. Potential always lies within us silently without our knowledge. We cannot make out which snake is in which snake pit. Similarly we cannot make out which potential lies in whom. We can gauge one’s potential through their performance and tests to some extent only. Potential is to be exploited by parents, teachers or other well wishers. Spotting the potential is not an easy job. One who spots potential in others should have at least some talent in them also. They have to thoroughly study the person who has potential too. Further, it is not enough if a potential is spotted, a coach, teacher, competition, participation, resources etc are quite essential for the development and use of potential in anybody. Sometimes only due to circumstances we come to know of the potential that is hidden in us. One needs inspiration to potential to come out. One also needs confidence to bring out their potential. Sometimes potential is called talent, intelligence, skill etc. It should be spotted. It should be geared up. However, nobody is born with full potential. As we grow according to the circumstances, opportunities we get, situations we face, encouragement, support, guidance, training etc which we receive, our potential develops without our knowledge. In short exposure is quite necessary for the development of potential. One when one achieves something, when one earns name& fame, it is when one feels that they are successful, when one is complacent; it is then they feel that their potential is being used. Even at that stage one does not know whether their potential is fully utilized or not. Potential is definitely something that is difficult to understand and assimilate.Potential has many limitations.
Whenever when one participates and wherever there is competition generally one’s potential comes to light. Opportunities can only bring in such exposures. Opportunities are scarce and opportunities are not equal. Sometimes ambitions drive out one’s potentials too. In any case it is efforts in right direction that bring out one’s potential to maximum possible extent. Efforts are always essential. Unfortunately exposure is not the same to everybody in this world. It varies from person to person. Hence, potential too varies from person to person. Genes may only help us to acquire potential that too to a little extent. Our potential could be both intellectual and physical. We need intelligence, knowledge, patience, confidence opportunities, etc. to develop our intellectual potential. Similarly we need good health, physique, stamina, exercise, coaching, nutritious timely food etc. to develop our physical potential. We ourselves would not be able to know to what extent we could develop our potential, to what extent we could make a head way. What we should we do and how we could we bring the potential out also we do not know fully. Potential is a hidden matter. It is capabilities in an individual. It is what individual is made up of. Some of the capabilities in an individual only come to light. The rest may die without even being noticed or known to anybody in the world at large or even to that particular individual even. Thus some of our talents/capabilities without coming to light, without being spotted, without being encouraged get wasted. It is a loss to the individual. It may be a loss to the society, to the country, or may be a loss to the world at large even. Unless somebody comes to know of our capabilities, how we can expect anybody to come and help us. Nobody knows we are made up of which chip or in other words we are made up of what mettle.
Environment in which one grows encouragement which one receives, etc all have a bearing on potential that one would have. At the beginning it is only a budding talent. It should be nurtured, groomed and allowed to blossom. One should be able to devote their heart and soul and entire energy to the task. One should have no distraction.One should be fortunate enough to be spotted at the appropriate time and given an opportunity to exhibit their special skill or talent. If one comes to know that they could sing well and that they have singing talent at an age above fifty is it possible for them to practice for long hours. It is a time when their memory power, patience, concentration, energy, etc are all on the decline. One cannot learn much at that age as they could when they were in their teens. It is an age to attain maturity in that art, when one should have been at the zenith. Music is an art which requires knowledge, prolonged and rigorous practice that too daily spread over many years, participation in concerts, due recognition of one's talent, encouragement and what not. One cannot become a musician of repute overnight however talented one may be. If a person who could express well, who could have completed masters in English literature easily, at the age of sixty plus tries to be a writer; the person could be only an ordinary writer at the best. Similarly, if one comes to know that one is good at auditing at an advanced age could one become a chartered accountant? Is it not waste of one's potential or a national waste? One may come across several such instances where those who are good at accountancy and other commerce subjects choosing physics, chemistry, and mathematics, to study engineering. Occasionally only, such people succeed but generally they fail or marginally pass the examinations. Further such people find it hard to come up in their career or profession too. These are only a few examples but such instances are in exhaustive. On the other hand those who are fortunate only choose subjects according to their potential. Such people excel not only in their studies but also in their career too. It is not enough if you have the right potential, you should get the right opportunity too. Everybody wants to come up in his or her career or profession and shine in their respective fields but only a small percentage of people succeed in their endeavor because everybody do not get the right opportunity and other essentials to utilize their potential to the optimum. Sometimes, it is the ambition, challenge; competition makes the man work hard and makes them give the best. That is those circumstances make the man to use the potential to maximum possible extent. The need makes them to come out with their best. Hence, the saying "Necessity is the mother of invention." Unfortunately, initially in our attempts, if we meet with failures instead of successes. We may become disappointed, depressed and all our potential may drain out. We may end up miserably in our life. Similarly, when we are half way through our studies, project, research or that matter whatever it may be, if we suddenly breathe our last, potential gets wasted. It is fate or destiny that can bring out one’s potential to full extent. It is fate that creates opportunities. We can only toil like an ox tied to a yoke. There is nothing sadder in this world than the waste of human potential.