OUR POTENTIAL IS OUR WEALTH

OUR POTENTIAL IS OUR WEALTH Not the Materialistic Things P SYCHOLOGISTS estimate that man uses only ten percent of his abilities. Professor William James of Harvard University aptly observed, “What we ought to be, we are not ready to be. “ In spite of the great qualities nature has endowed us with, we are content to lead inferior lives. Discontentment sets in and we blame others for not giving us our due. We should look within ourselves to find the reasons for life’s deficiencies. Constantly viewing others with envy and a sense of grievance can turn us into our own worst enemies. The fact should be faced fairly and squarely that only if we exploit our own potential to the full can we taste success. All other courses will lead to failure. It is essential to ensure at the outset that our efforts are directed at worthwhile objectives. Else our potential will be wasted. Up to medieval times, gold being greatly prized, the preoccupations of the ‘’scientists” of those days was to convert base metals into gold. Dreams of instant wealth drove people over the centuries to superhuman efforts. But all the time, money and energy was spent in vain. Death always overtook them before they could achieve anything. It never seemed to occur to any of them that these metals had a different and greater potential than anyone could ever have imagined. Iron, for example, was convertible, not into gold, but into machinery, and could be used as a versatile building material of great strength. Today, western nations, having learnt these secrets built up the relative technology, and succeeded in acquiring far greater wealth than mere silver and gold. o Constantly viewing others with envy and a sense of grievance can turn us into our own worst enemies. Scientific Attitude A scientific temper demands judging of matters on their true merit, not because they are for or against one.