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"I have wasted my hours." Leonardo Da Vinci

"Beware of dissipating your powers; strive constantly to concentrate them. Genius thinks it can do whatever it sees others doing, but is sure to repent of every ill-judged outlay. "
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)

We all waste potential at times. Locate wasted potential you can reclaim. Don't spend too much time regretting wasted potential because that is itself a waste of potential. Realize all the potential you can between awakening and bedtime, then move on to the next day.

It is more essential to reclaim your own wasted potential than helping others reclaim theirs. You can only help others when they meet you halfway, when it is their will and intention to reclaim their potential and you serve as an assistant, not a substitute, for their intentionality. Also, you can rarely help others fulfill their potential if you haven't fulfilled yours.

How do we waste potential? Everyone needs to probe into this for themselves, but many of the ways are classic.

Using myself as example, I see that I waste potential whenever I compromise my physical health because I feel either stressed or celebratory, and use those as rationalizations to self-medicate by overeating or some other indulgence. Every day feels stressful or celebratory or both, but my body doesn't grant exceptions based on that. Almost any time I treat my body in a way that would not make sense lifelong, I waste potential. I said "almost" because there are some occasions where it is appropriate to use up some of the body's potential to save some other potential that is more valuable. For example, it might be appropriate to stay up past a healthy bedtime to talk to a suicidal friend.

When I look to see where I waste potential, I;m essentially doing an energy audit. I am looking at the energetic transactions in my life, such as financial , bodily, social, sexual, emotional and creative transactions and life energy and money expenditures.

At the same time, I must do a time audit. Just as space/time is a bonded pair, so too is energy/time. Where my energy goes, so goes my time, and where my time goes, so goes my energy.

For example, let's say you make an impulsive purchase of something you don't really need. It seems like you didn't spend much time making the purchase, but for most of us, time and money are in an equation — the time-money continuum. If you work, you spend time earning the money you use to purchase things. When you buy things, you are also spending the time you sacrificed to make the money you spent. Conserving money conserves time you may later have to spend to replace it.

Social transactions can be the most fulfilling and valuable uses of resources possible at certain times, but at other times they can be massive depotentiators. A huge depotentiator is trying to work out inner conflicts interpersonally. An addictive, dependent relationship can be a place where we massively waste resources.

Where we waste potential is where we invest energy and time into departing from the experience of meaning. We waste potential when we vent, act out, and let ourselves go. As Goethe says, "A master first reveals himself in his ability to hold back."

Here is the most potent divining rod to discern if you are wasting potential. Ask yourself, "Will I remember this well on my deathbed?" If you can't answer in the affirmative, you're probably wasting potential.

Consider this an auspicious time to see where you waste potential and reclaim it for life-affirming purposes.