I have usually been better at most things than others around me. It started way back when I was young; maybe as young as 3 or 4 years old, with pencil drawings. I was an exceptional artist even then, relative to others my age. Then came school age and grades and athletics. Again, as good of grades and as good a student as anyone else in my class. On the baseball fields and basketball courts I was always the first one picked and the most prolific. In the social environment I was equally as proficient. I always had the full table in the lunchroom and the most dances at the dances.
All but one of these characteristics followed to the next subsequent level; high school. The academic metrics did not take root after the transition, however, the others took hold exponentially; the art, the athletics, the socialites, the mentorships of younger schoolmates and the ambassadorships to the faculty. Art prizes won. Athletic prizes won. Society distinctions acknowledged. Friends and esteem. The academic metrics would not see the same level of perpetuity. I scarcely ever remember opening a book in high school. It would go down to the wire, 2 days before graduation, waiting on a final mathematics test score to determine if I would exit lower level academia with my classmates, many of which I had spent every year with since age 5. I did sufficient enough, by 2 points to exit.
I joined the Army 3 days after the exit from academia. This decision was made much earlier than the actual execution. I was a 17 year old senior in high school. A small, rural, underfunded and under-facultied school in the middle of no where. I worked as a "curteosy clerk" at a Kroger supermarket in the next big town about 30 miles away. It was just days before Christmas Eve and I was bagging groceries and wrangling shopping carts from the wintry mix covered parking lot. Rain, sleet and snow perpetuated throughout the day and the supermarket was chaotic. As I stood at the end of my checkout lane placing food in plastic bags, I briefly noticed a black fellow and his pregnant wife enter the store. He was wearing a remarkable outfit and an even more remarkable hat. Later, he and she came through my lane. I asked him if he would like for me to take the bags to his car and load them in his trunk. He declined and proceeded through the inclement weather to the car located at the very end of the lot. The man proceeded to walk with the shopping cart, back to the store and relocate the cart in the same spot from which he got it. I told him that I thought that was the coolest thing I had ever seen and I asked him why he did it. He said "The Rangers taught me that, son." I walked into the Army recruiters office the next day and said "I would like to sign up for the guys with the black hats." He said "That's the Ranger's. You have the test scores to do anything you want." I said "No I want that." Three days after high school graduation I found myself being yelled at at 2AM on a bus in Fort Benning, Georgia. Once again, I found myself out-performing my peers. The highest rifle score. The highest PT score. The best wall locker. The shiniest boots. The most squared-away uniforms. Platoon leader. Throughout basic training, Airborne school and Ranger school I found myself the top or among the top of my peers. About 6 months later I found myself unable to move, lying on my back after an 800' parachute drop that fractured my hip socket.
I used the prorated GI Bill money to go to college. My poor performance in high school academia did not help me get into a very prestigious school of higher learning. I went to a public school. I found myself to have a better work ethic now in college than I had back in high school, probably as a side effect from the Rangers. The first semester I made all A's. When the second semester started, I had a feeling of pride in my academic metric and I wanted to see if I could do the all A's thing again. I did. The 3rd semester started and I did not want my all A's streak to end. It didn't. This is when I began to see. I began to see my human potential. I didn't know the scope of it and I didn't understand what I was discovering, but I new it was significant and I knew it was helping maximize academic metrics for the first time since grade school. I made all A's until I graduated with a Master's Degree in Mathematics.
Since the time when I acknowledged human potential back in my undergraduate days, I have since come to understand it. I have cultivated it and I have developed it and scrapped it and developed it again. Over and over. For those of you who chose to follow my writings here, I will explain to you the things I have learned about human potential. I will have here, An Examination of Human Potential. I hope you will all follow these writings to their culmination; a book.
I have experienced a high degree of effectiveness and success at everything I have ever done. I am not special. I am not gifted or privileged. I come from humble beginnings. I have discovered why I have had this level of success and effectiveness and it is not tricky. It is not secret and it is not available to those who started with advantages. It is available to anyone capable of Conscious Endeavor. If you live, you have potential. If you are reading this then you are alive. You have potential. Significant potential.
The cornerstones of this Examination of Human Potential are;
- Intelligence
- Physical Conditions
- Adaptability
- Relationship
These are the four corners of Human Potential. These will each break down into sub-cornerstones and those will break down into more subsequent ideals and methods.
I will add a new section every week. I hope that you will come back each time and read the new and think on it. Conscious endeavour is the key to vault. Think.
In the next section, I will make a superficial scratch to the surface of the cornerstone, Intelligence.
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