精神科医师
即便是最为成就不凡的人，也可能会有这样的困扰：感觉自己没能发挥全部的潜能。我们认为自己可以做到的，跟我们实际上做到的存在差距，这让我们自责，认为只要看得再远一点、再勤奋一点，我们便真的可以实现圆满的成功。
但不考虑客观情况对我们是不公平的。我们并不是生活在真空里，而环境对成功多多少少是有些促进作用的。换一个环境，我们的某些才能和特质或许能够得到更好的发展。或许我们实际所处的环境不适合它们发展。
潜能并不仅仅和我们作为科学家、作家或商人的成就有关。做自己、做朋友、做伴侣，所需的智慧同样需要潜能。而我们不可能总是在所有方面均匀地分配精力。例如，许多成就卓越的人，都会坦然承认自己没有尽全力做一个最好的伴侣。
潜能并不是没有差别的单一能力，忽略一方面的潜能常常意味着其他方面的潜能得到了发展。我们或许只注意到了失败，但此处有所失很有可能意味着他处有所得。在赛跑方面的潜能未能得到发挥，可能在家庭生活方面的潜能获得了发展，反之亦然。
考虑到我们身上的局限性，我们永远也不可能在生活的每个方面做到最好，因此，培养某些方面的才能必然意味着任由其他方面的才能枯萎。在这种意义上，感觉有某些东西未能实现只是我们身为凡人面临的必然处境。
因此，对于那种“没有发挥全部潜能”的恼人感觉，最富有建设性的解读是，将其看作一种价值的内在宣言。表达以我们一直忽略了的方式发展某方面潜能的渴望，这种感觉能够帮助我们调整方向、朝一个能够带来更多满足感的新方向前进。
哲人
如果我说我能够预知未来，你大概会认为我疯了、被迷了心窍或是个诈骗大师。然而，当谈到潜能时，似乎我们所有人都对自己预知未来的能力信心满满。几乎每个人都认为，他们了解自己的潜能是什么，还有许多人认为自己能够发现他人身上的潜能，尽管根据潜能的定义，它是否真的存在取决于某种还未具备的能力是否会得到发展。比如，说某人有潜力成为一个优秀的网球运动员，就意味着他们现在还不是。
如果只是在谈论某种我们完全具备但还未运用的能力，比如停止观看板球、而去修剪玫瑰的潜能，我们不需要预知未来。但如果谈论的是一些还未具备的能力，那么将潜能转化为实际通常涉及到更大的不确定性，要远远超过关于潜能的泛泛之谈所能设想到的。
首先，我们完全有可能无法使仅仅是可能具备的能力变成现实，原因有很多。决心、情感因素和环境，都有可能让我们失败。
其次，很可能我们完全错了。比如说，很多志向远大的艺术家，都曾在某个阶段不得不面临一个残酷的现实：他们只是还不错，但并不具备成为真正卓越艺术家的才华。在年轻人看来无可限量的潜能，在过来人眼中则显得更加有限。
让-保罗•萨特(Jean-Paul Sartre)痛斥潜能会给我们带来虚假的慰藉，因为它总让我们思考：假如情况有所不同，我们又会怎样？沉溺于思考潜能，就是在否定自己、用自己所没有实现的东西来界定自己，而非用自己实际的情况来肯定自己。我们有些一厢情愿地假设，我们知道自己能够能够什么样的人，或我们本可以成为什么样的人，但事实上“唯一可靠的只有现实”。没有人能够预知未来，或感知过去不同的可能性。没有得到开发的潜能只不过是一种我们假象自己拥有的能力，它只属于梦境，而不应像个幽灵一样，盘踞在我们的现实生活中。
注：精神科医师和哲人共同生活在英格兰西南部。
译者/吴蔚
http://www.ftchinese.com/story/001039831
The Shrink
A feeling that we haven’t quite lived up to our potential can come to haunt even the most accomplished among us. We blame ourselves for the gap between what we think we are capable of and what is actually happening in our lives, believing that with a little more foresight or application we really could have perfected our achievements.
But it is unfair to ourselves not to take the situation into account. We don’t exist in a vacuum, and our circumstances can be more or less conducive to flourishing. In a different context we might have been able to develop certain talents and qualities more. Perhaps the conditions were not right for them to grow in the life we actually had.
Potential does not apply only to our achievements as a scientist or writer or businessperson. There is also a potential to develop wisdom as human beings, friends or partners, and it’s not always possible to devote our energies to all these tasks equally. Many high achievers, for instance, will readily admit they haven’t become the best partners they could have been.
Potential is not one undifferentiated thing, and neglecting one potentiality often means that different ones are developed. We may notice only the failure, but loss in one direction could well mean gain in another. An unfulfilled potential in competitive running can have its counterpart in a fulfilled domestic life and vice versa.
Considering our limitations, we can never become the best we can in every aspect of our life, so cultivating some abilities always means letting others wilt. In that sense, a feeling of having left something unfulfilled is just part of the human condition.
So that nagging feeling of not having lived up to our potential is most constructively interpreted as an implicit statement of value. Expressing a desire to develop certain areas in ways we have so far neglected can help us to steer our actions towards a different, more fulfilling course.
The Sage
If I told you I could see into the future, you would be justified in thinking I was mad, deluded or a con artist. Yet when it comes to potential, we all seem to have a tremendous confidence in our abilities as seers. Almost everyone thinks they know what their potential is, and many think they can spot it in others, even though by definition whether or not it really exists depends on the development of something that is not yet there. To say someone has the potential to be a great tennis player, for example, is to assume that they are not a great tennis player yet.
No precognition is necessary when we are talking of nothing more than a fully formed but latent ability, such as the potential to stop watching the cricket and go prune the roses instead. But when we are thinking about as yet undeveloped abilities, turning potentiality into actuality usually involves a much higher degree of uncertainty than common talk of potential assumes.
First of all, there are any number of reasons why we might simply fail to make real what is only possible. Resolve, emotional resources or circumstances might fail us.
Second, we might just be wrong. Many aspiring artists, for example, have at some stage to deal with the harsh truth that they are merely quite good and do not have what it takes to be truly exceptional. Potential that appears unlimited to youth may look more finite when seen through more experienced eyes.
Jean-Paul Sartre denounced potential for the false comfort it gives us through thoughts of what we could have been if things had been different. To dwell on potential is to define ourselves negatively, in terms of what we are not, rather than positively, for what we are. We too readily assume we know what we could be, or could have been when “reality alone is reliable”. No one can see the future or alternative pasts. Potential left undeveloped is nothing more than a hypothetical ability that belongs in our dreams, not as a ghostly presence in our actual lives.
The Shrink & The Sage live together in south-west England
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