The Tortoise and the Hare: A lesson in reaching your potential

We all know the story of the tortoise and the hare, right?  If not, there are a few versions I found here and here.

This story teaches a great many lessons and can be applied to many facets of our life.  The lesson I would like to get from this story is on reaching your potential.  You might be wondering how this can apply to reaching your potential and if it even possible to reach your potential or to even know what your potential is.  I can tell you that I believe it is possible but if you are looking for some quick method to find or reaching your potential, you are not going to find it.  That is where the story of the tortoise and the hare come in.

Humility
As you recall in the fable, the hare had a very large ego and believed he was better than everyone else.  That was where he failed to reach his potential.  In order to know and reach your potential, you must be humble.  If you 'boast in your own strength' and believe that everything you are and can become is only because of you, you will fail to reach your potential.  Only God knows your potential.  Only God knows what you can become. You must rely upon our Heavenly Father to tell you where you should go, what you should do, and how you are to get there.

Pride
The opposite of humility is pride.  Pride has been the downfall of many individuals and nations, just like the hare.  Pride is 'boasting in your own strength' just as I talked about above.  You forget God and others and become selfish.  Instead of being nice and considerate of others, you start putting other down and telling everyone you are better than they are.  The hare knew he was a fastest and I'm sure everyone else knew it too but he continued to belittle others for their slowness, especially tortoise.  You can still be confident in your abilities and not have pride.  When pride gets in the way is when you become over-confident.  That was the hare's problem.  He was so over-confident he didn't even try.  He slept, ate lunch, and slept again thinking there would always be enough time to beat tortoise because he was so slow.  Pride will slow or even stop your progression to reaching your potential

Perseverance
Tortoise had perseverance.  The dictionary defines perseverance as: "steadfastness in doing something despite difficulty or delay in achieving success." (Google Search; define:perseverance) Tortoise could have easily convinced himself that there was no way he was going to beat hare in a race because he was just too fast and therefore forfeited the race.  He pushed on, probably hoping and praying that he could somehow beat the odds.  When it comes to your potential, you just need to push on... one week, one day, and sometimes just one hour at a time, letting the Spirit of God guide you in the direction you should go.  Reaching your potential could very well be a life long journey and possibly even longer.

Patience
The last characteristic or trait that I'm going to list that we should have to help us find and reach our potential is patience.  I'm sure there are others and you can share them with me if you would like.  If you were there watching the race, would you think tortoise or hare had more patience?  I would say the answer would be tortoise.  He was slow and steady.  He didn't care was anyone else said.  He just continued on with the race and did was he needed to.  Sometimes things don't go the way you want them to.  Trials come that can hinder or slow you down when trying to reach your potential.  Just have patience.  It is easy for me to say but it is nonetheless true.  "And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience." (Romans 5:3, emphasis added)

Your potential is your and yours alone.  No one else can find or achieve it for you.  Rely on God through humility, perseverance and patience without pride and you will be able to eventually reach your potential and win the race just like tortoise did.