The Place of Most Potential

Dewitt Jones, National Geographic photographer, has created a short film called "Everyday Creativity." If you have the opportunity to view this film, invest the 20 minutes required for a guaranteed renewal of inspiration -- about life as well as about creativity.

Among the many wise suggestions Jones makes in his narration is the recommendation that to get the best results from our creative endeavors we should place ourselves in "the place of most potential." Those words have resounded in my awareness for the past 24 hours, since my last viewing of "Everyday Creativity." I am luxuriating in reflections about what the phrase means to me -- where it directs me, who it sends me to meet, when it guides me into action.

The place of most potential can be within or without. It can be a physical location, a relationship, a dream, an organ of the body, a creative work, an unknown adventure, a child we befriend, a new friendship, or even a meal.

There is a link between this advice and the recommendation of Joseph Campbell, the American writer, teacher, and orator, to "follow your bliss." The place of most potential for most of us is a place that makes us happy -- a place where we are free from the constraints, self-consciousness, self-doubt, and lack of authenticity that mar our efforts to realize our ideals of conduct, creativity, justice, or harmony.

For millennia, the wise have suggested to seekers that they "be present" -- that they focus on the present time, place and surroundings, rather than the past or the future. The place of most potential is always the present. It is only the present that we can change, that we can redirect into the form or the energetic quality that we desire. The past is gone. Recriminating with myself that in a meeting yesterday I interrupted people from a surfeit of enthusiasm will not change that experience, for me or for others. Wondering at 2 a.m. how I will complete my "to-do" list for the next 48 hours will not get the tasks completed. Only by opening my awareness to this instant can I reach into the vast potential of the universe to realize in this moment the treasure of beauty, love, or surprise that awaits me.

Thanks, Dewitt Jones! Your words are unforgettable. May you arrive at the place of most potential with every breath.