"Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content." -- Helen Keller
1. Potential by Ron White

The stage was a Texas Rangers baseball game and as I stared at David Dellucci, the Texas Ranger batter, I muttered 'Potential' as he held the bat over his shoulder waiting for the pitch. No sooner had the word escaped my mouth when my friend leaned over and said,' What did you say?' I replied to her,' I said potential...' Her confused question was, 'Okaaaay? – Potential in regards to what?'

I then explained...'Well, in science they have something called potential energy and it basically says that the higher an object is the more potential energy it has. For example, a rock on top of a building has a potential energy in it – if it were to fall. I was just thinking about the potential energy in the bat of Dellucci and how that relates to me.'

She looked at me intensely somehow sensing that I was telling the truth that these were my thoughts. She proclaimed, 'I never cease to be astounded at the weird things you think about.'

Perhaps it is an odd thought to cross my mind at a baseball game, however, it occurred. Potential energy basically says that the higher an object is the greater the potential energy. A ball on a six story building has more potential energy than one on a three story building. As a matter of fact, the doubling of the height doubles the potential energy.

At the baseball game, when I started thinking about potential energy I was considering it in regards to me – and you for that matter. You see, it has been said that to those who much has been given... much is expected. Based on the fact that you have access to a computer, understand how to read and have a thirst for learning – you have been given much. Or in scientific terms you have tremendous potential energy. You are like that rock on a tall building. However, if you sit there – the potential energy is never utilized or accessed.

One of the greatest tragedies of life is when an individual has tremendous potential energy and squanders it. That is one of my greatest fears. I am constantly faced with the prospect of not using my potential energy. To me that is one of my largest motivating factors. Everyday as I age, I look in the mirror and question if I did everything I could to use my potential energy. Did I do everything I could to figuratively jump off that building and expend the energy?

Pent up inside of you right now is tremendous potential energy that could be utilized to cure cancer, send humans to Mars, write a novel or become President of The United States. The great tragedy is not expending your potential energy and falling short. The great tragedy of life is to be that boulder – to have tremendous potential energy and squander it through inaction.

There you have it. I was thinking about potential at the baseball game. I was thinking about it because I know that humans with nothing more than primitive tools constructed the pyramids, Stone Henge and The Great Wall of China. These are testaments to the human potential. They are testaments to certain individuals thousands of years ago expending their potential energy for the ages to witness and marvel at. The challenge today for you may not be a monument for society or culture; however, it is a call for you to understand potential energy and implore you to seize yours.

-- Ron White

What's your Potential? Are you Ready to have
POTENTIAL

"Continuous effort - not strength or intelligence - is the key to unlocking our potential." -- Sir Winston Churchill

"The important thing is this: To be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become." -- Charles du Bois

"No matter how dark things seem to be or actually are, raise your sights and see the possibilities - always see them, for they´re always there." -- Norman Vincent Peale

"Poverty is untested potential." -- Denis Waitley

"The potential of the average person is like a huge ocean unsailed, a new continent unexplored, a world of possibilities waiting to be released and channeled toward some great good." -- Brian Tracy

"A ship in harbour is safe, but that is not what ships are built for." -- William Shedd

"One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar." -- Helen Keller

"Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions." -- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

"Human beings have the remarkable ability to turn nothing into something. They can turn weeds into gardens and pennies into fortunes." -- Jim Rohn

"Every man dies. Not every man truly lives." -- Braveheart

"Everybody can be great... because anybody can serve. You don´t have to have a college degree to serve. You don´t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love." -- Martin Luther King, Jr.

"We know what we are, but know not what we may be." -- William Shakespeare

"Dwell in possibility." -- Emily Dickinson

"The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible." -- Arthur Clarke

"If we did all the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astonish ourselves." -- Thomas A. Edison