Lost potential

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Im afraid of losing my potential and every passing year is contributing to it. When im in deathbed how am I going to convince myself that i lived a fulfilling life and tried my best

You are still young and have time to figure it out. I can’t live up to the potential I once had, so I’ve decided to redefine success. For me, success/fulfillment is finding happiness whenever possible and making the lives of people around me better in some way - even in small ways.

You don't have to try your best. Give yourself a break.

Doing nothing is as valid as anything else, though people will probably become frustrated with this behaviour if it is indulged in to an excess.

I love doing nothing. Endlessly striving to achieve the most is both exhausting and non-productive. Humans seems to come up with the best plans when left to ponder on their own thoughts.

I worry about this sometimes. I think I've not made my mark on the world and then I'll be dead and I won't have any grandchildren to leave my name behind and me and my daughter are the last in our line and that's it. Dead like a dodo. Extinct.

I think that's life my friend. Probably the same for most people.

Everybody loses potential, that's why it's potential and not actual.

The thing though is that you're not dead. (If you were, I'd be very impressed that you managed to post this)

The question becomes what is something that you'd like to accomplish, and what would it take to make it so.

I'd also point out that no matter how much a person has accomplished, that feeling will remain. I know from experience, because I have legitimately accomplished and experienced a lot, but only a small fraction of the stuff that i could theoretically have accomplished with more resources and not wasting so much time on things like sleeping.

I don't care about leaving any sort of mark on the world but it does bother me that I've spent a lot of my life being less comfortable and doing less of the stuff i'd like to be doing.

It bothers me that there still seems to be a whole 'adult' world that I've not managed to access yet.

Thats the world where people have careers, start their own businesses, buy their own houses and pay into pensions. I still live much as I have done since i was 20, month to month, just about scraping by, never planning anything, never making any progress.

Potential is a tricky thing though. You could say i had potential - i was reasonably smart. But i had poor executive function, poor people skills.

You could say a tank of petrol has potential. But without an engine, it's potential is directionless.

In my opinion, "You don't have to try your best" is poor advice.

Doing nothing is underrated in modern, western societies.

I suppose whether it is good advice depends on the person who hears the advice.

I just meant that nobody owes their best to anybody. Doing one's best should be an option, not a necessity.

"not wasting so much time on things like sleeping"

Terrible design flaw! Even my iphone charges faster than I do, and humans have had a gazillion years of development already!