There may be a lot of names for what we call ourselves when we don’t, or believe we don’t, live up to our potential. Writer Abby Ellin, in an article for Psychology Today in 2010, aptly called it “The Contender Syndrome.” It’s worth taking a look at what Ellin characterizes as not a clinical diagnosis, but a phenomenon “quite common today, especially with the proliferation of social networking and the public blaring of the fabulousness of other people’s lives.”
Ellin writes:
“Potential isn’t some static, internal entity that springs from us onto the page, or stage, or ball field. Our potential is malleable; it can be built. Recognizing this is essential if we hope to reach it.”
Here’s a link to Marlon Brando’s famous contender scene in “On the Waterfront.”
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