I Think My Potential Is My Biggest Curse

Every weekend, I get the single powerful idea that I am going to change my life. I get off work fantasizing about all the half-baked ideas that have formed in my head and have been swirling around waiting for me to breathe life into them.

I forgot to mention this: One thing about me is, I will have ideas. A new one every day, every week, and each one is either good or on its way to being good. I’m gifted like that. For all the things I do not enjoy about myself, and there are many, I will give myself credit for that.

I took an Uber from Lekki Phase One to Agungi this evening and I spent the whole time wondering “What is it going to take to make me happy?”

I ask myself this question in different forms every other day. I ask myself why I’m unhappy, what I’m missing, what exactly it is that makes me unsatisfied with life. The answer is different every time. Sometimes it’s as simple as “You need to find something to be passionate about”. Sometimes it’s “You hate the 9–5 life and you need to get out before you lose your shit.” They’re true to varying degrees(and I lost my shit a long time ago), but right now, the answer is “You need to find something to be passionate about”.

Now we’re getting somewhere.

But the problem is, I don’t think I’ve ever done anything that I liked so much that I couldn’t imagine life without.
I write. Writing is my whole life, but to be honest, I could live without it. I haven’t written anything in three months since the last article here about not wanting to be a better person. Maybe writing isn’t really my whole life.

If it’s not, what is?

I’m a creative, I think. We live for passion and colour and art and whatever. I don’t have any passion, I’m not one for colour and I could give two shits about art. But between me and God, I have potential for everything, even the things I hate. The worst part of all of it is that everyone knows it, so they have expectations.

They invest in you because they can see all the things that you could be, all the people you could become and it doesn’t matter that you barely have any will to live. You see all the things you could be too but you’re overwhelmed by all of it; the expectations, the stupid potential, the ideas that won’t stop coming and the feeling that you’re letting everyone down.

Side thought: I think if Paul were here, he’d get it. He always just understood somehow, and he was one of the few people who focused on where I was at the time, not some vague idea of a future that everyone told me was so bright. I miss him so much, but I understand now that sometimes people don’t get to hold your hand for the rest of your life. Sometimes theirs ends way before yours does.

Don’t get me wrong, I still have people who are very invested in my success. My parents, a couple of friends, a couple of people here and there. But I’m weighed down by everyone’s investment and their refusal to let me give up on whatever life they think my potential can get me. I appreciate it, but I’m tired. All the varied declarations of “You’ll figure it out” haven’t helped. I haven’t figured anything out and time is flying.

What are we going to do, investor?

That’s exactly what I need though; someone to sit me down and tell me exactly what to do because I won’t lie, I’m failing before I’ve even started to really try. I mean, I’m trying. I just haven’t scratched the surface. I have a lot of roads before me and I think I want to go in all directions because I don’t want any of it to go to waste. But I’m just one person.

I’d kill for a one-track mind.

Another weekend is over. Nothing has changed. But you know what else isn’t new? I have another good idea and it’s brilliant. Will I do anything about it? You can bet your top dollar that I won’t. I have neither the will nor the mental capacity.

Another good one will come tomorrow. And another and another. That’s the extent of my potential, and the greatness of it is what makes it my biggest undoing.