Why People Hold Back their Potential

From Kalpulli Community

Why do so many of us hold in our opinions and hold back our potential? We don't even let ourselves dream of being great leaders or revolutionaries?
You are meant to be a great leader-- at least the leader of your own life, which can indeed be great.
But instead you find yourself working a part-time job or 2 and desperately applying for more, and while you work you often stare into space, getting misty-eyed over jumbles of ideas that you wish you could articulate.
When thoughts stray so far from the routine, so far from what your peers deem relevant, you wonder if it would just be overwhelming to bring them up.
People are easily overwhelmed when they confine themselves to housekeeping and jobkeeping.
You know you could do so much more, but do you really want to express yourself and be judged?
Anyone would judge you by your opinions. Further, the people that count will and should judge you by both your opinions and your actions, your abilities, your gumption.
Perhaps we're all tired of being judged and found wanting. Applying and being rejected. Or brainstorming that only solicits harsh advice rather than collaboration.
The unspoken truth is that colleges, committees and corporations judge you as pithy and replaceable, but only to maintain their power over the pool.
They make you wonder whether you're good enough, and when they reinforce the idea that thousands of applicants are not good enough, they prove themselves to be unworthy of our life-affirming society.
You should also judge them. You should recognize that any organization which places you in a position below your capacity is manipulating you. It isn't good enough for you. If you aren't appreciated, if your power isn't harnessed, or if you aren't paid a living wage, then the organization is also unworthy of the future society that we're creating: a life-affirming, cooperative society where everyone makes their own place. The unworthy corporate entity is better off destroyed.
After all, academies and businesses and hierarchies do not breathe or birth or live. People, and groups of people, breathe and birth and live and rejoice and create.
Why do we let the non-living (doctrine, bylaws, routines, structures) rule over the living? Is it because, having expressed ourselves, we would not be able or willing to take responsibility for living?
I myself hesitate when I state my goals, when I try to call myself revolutionary. I hesitate and predict future failure to meet my goals, a laughable brief run of independence ahead, lapses into dependence, bold statements yielding nothing. But failing once or twice doesn't make me a Failure. Even if I do give up in the end, exhaust myself on activism, and burn out from bright shining bravery, I will have contributed to the work of others still brave and still active. Lapses in my conviction won't really make me a hypocrite.
Doubt is healthy.
Faith is hard, and even when you have it, it must be balanced by doubt. Remember, doubt is healthy, skepticism is scientific and humble.
People hold themselves back because they can't commit.
Because life is long nowadays, and so few are willing to die for their cause (thank God!); rather few willing to live for their cause (unfortunately); they hold themselves back, noncommittal.
We prioritize our selves for the sake of long, full lives rather than prioritizing Life itself for its own sake. When can the self-esteem generation move past self-affirmation to Life-affirmation, defend the dying species, rescue vanishing ecosystems, to be rescued by nature in the end?
Aren't we capable of loving passionately, healing the earth, cleaning the waters, restoring the soil with mushrooms and compost, growing our own food, sharing knowledge and skills freely, making our own clothes, defining our own beauty, creating our own unique ceremonies, learning from all different cultures, writing our own life stories, making grassroots media, inventing local energy utilities, making sure our friends and family are safe walking home at night, articulating arguments honestly, and more??
We are capable.
We are responsible for doing all those things.
I know many people who would love to live in self-sustaining, community-driven ways. But how? We've made a start, and we may make mistakes, we may have lapses in judgment or gaps in our energy, but at least we've made a start and have glimpsed the radically different lifestyle possible.
If you can't sustain or commit to change, just take it one day at a time. One step at a time. Don't ever call yourself a hypocrite. What matters is your intent, your heart,
your passionate movement towards the horizon.
No one ever gets to the horizon, but as they move toward it, more things become clear in the light of the sun.