Me, You or We?

In search of the catalyst on fulfilling potential.

Published in

Writers Guild

5 min readOct 28, 2019

There is a paradox to being human.

We are, at all times, individuals, independent in our actions, and, members of groups that follow certain sets of principles.

Those two realities, oftentimes contradict each other, when we are faced with certain decisions.

Will I do something for myself or will I tend to the needs of others?

Is there a sense of prioritizing among these two options?

Or is this all a fallacy?

“The work to fulfill our potential has become an almost exclusively selfish pursuit. A pursuit that, by its very nature, puts us out of balance.” — Simon Sinek

The “ME vs WE” concept.

On the one hand, our primary and foremost asset to consider of is ourselves.

Here we may cite the example of the instruction aboard an airplane — place your oxygen mask on first before helping others — to make that point.

Now, two comments emerge:

The plane situation is an emergency, which, to be honest, doesn’t precisely reflect our day-to-day life.
If we exclusively devote time only to ourselves and repeatedly choose to neglect those around us, then they too will cease to be interested in us.

On the other hand, our time and efforts should be devoted to others, in hopes of later returning the benefit and, ultimately, helping ourselves.

The problem here is that it’s a high-risk trail.

In theory, this might sound wonderful, but in practice, it simply doesn’t work.

If we turn our attention to people around us before we take care of ourselves, it’s probable that we end up feeling overwhelmed by a sense of resentment.

By keeping an eye solely on others, we leave out our own self-improvement. If we don’t take care of ourselves, no one else will, and eventually we will suffer the consequences in many different shapes and forms.

So, it’s hard to tell which option is better.

There is no right answer. Every day we are wavering between selfish and selfless decisions. Neither one slope nor the other offers an ideal solution.

Neither selfishness nor selflessness is good or bad.

In fact, the two concepts are intricately linked.

Mixing passion with practicality.

The quest to reach our full potential is, for the most part, a journey of personal discovery. It is a purely selfish pursuit.

The very question — how can I unlock my full potential — puts us at the center of the equation, often ignoring that we are part of a social whole.

We aspire to be self-assured, clear and conscious about our goals, and to know what we need to do to be successful. To begin each day with a clear-cut list of what has to be done and how it could be accomplished.

But, should all this be considered a lonely journey?

Many people invest time and money to attend elaborate seminars, buy books and read encyclopedic articles written by personal improvement gurus. And all these influences may last for a few weeks. From one point on, however, it seems that we’ll start ignoring them — as is the case with a trending diet.

Too many of us simply end up abandoning old habits until we discover a new diet or until we learn about another hip seminar, new and up-and-coming.

The desire to improve ourselves, regardless, remains a noble goal.

In spite of any mishaps, imminent irregularities, we should try to learn about new things and continue on practicing what we already think we know.

But, again, should all this be a lonely journey?

Maybe not.

That being said, here’s something we have to employ—people around us.

The secret sauce on fulfilling human potential.

Only when we look beyond our own individual searches can we reach the maximum.

The key to our own self-improvement is to help ourselves and others around us become better at the same time — then we can find what we are looking for.

The pursuit of ‘my potential’ is, therefore, to be replaced by the pursuit of ‘our potential’. As a community. As a team with a common goal and/or path.

This is exactly what we are trying to achieve here at Medium.

We strive to bring the information, knowledge, opinion of each and every one us forward and with us—our readers — to go wherever all this may take us.

The only real way for any of us to grow and evolve — to reach his or her full potential, is through cooperation and social interaction.

In school, we learned from Newton that “for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction”. So, once an action involves solidarity and a willingness to help, then the reaction we receive can have the same effect.

Let’s keep on reading all that we’ve read about personal improvement, let’s keep on attending seminars (and the like) that evolve various aspects of our abilities, but, this time, let’s do it together with friends and family.

Let’s go to the maximum along with somebody.

Let’s share the experience. Let’s discover ourselves through the eyes of others, through mutual interaction and genuine expression of the people around us.

In this way, we may be able to fulfill our human potential.

Thank you so much for reading my story.

If you enjoyed this, please click and hold the ‘Clap’ button — it would make me super happy and also help other people read it as well.

Also, if you’d like to leave a comment regarding what you read, your thoughts or insights on my story, I would deeply appreciate the feedback.

Till the next time,
Peace!