Few people during their lifetime come anywhere near exhausting the resources within them. There are deep wells of strength that are seldom used. Richard Boyd

I gathered with a group of friends a short time ago and our conversation diverted into the question of What If in our lives. Each of us took a look back at another time and place and thought out loud with the group, What if certain things had gone differently? In my own life, I discussed the choice of going to BYU instead of Columbia University where I had also been recruited to play football. What if I had gone on a foreign LDS mission and learned a foreign language instead of to Washington, D.C.? There are thousands of spur of the moments decisions in life that could have changed the entire direction of everything. What you majored in, jobs you took, the girl you married, places you chose to live, friends you became close to and a thousand other options.

Toward the end of George Bernard Shaws life, a reporter challenged him to play the What If game.

Mr. Shaw, he began. You have been around some of the most famous people in the world. You are on a first-name basis with royalty, world-renowned authors, artists, teachers and dignitaries from every part of this continent. If you had your life to live over and could be anybody youve ever known, the reporter asked, Who would you want to be?

Shaw responded, I would choose to be the man George Bernard Shaw could have been, but never was.

What would have been your answer? Who is it you want to be? What is it you want your life to become? If you had your life to live over, what would be different? Pursuing your potential is not found attempting to be like someone else, or achieving what others have done, but by pursuing the untapped reservoir within you.

Elie Wiesel tells of a rabbi who has said that when we cease to live and go before our creator, the question asked of us will not be why we did not become a messiah, a famous leader, or answer the great mysteries of life. The question will be simply why did you not become you, the fully active, realized person that only you had the potential of becoming.

A rose only becomes beautiful and blesses others when it opens up and blooms. Its greatest tragedy is to stay in a tight closed bud, never fulfilling its potential.

The great storyteller Mark Twain told about a man who died and met Saint Peter at the pearly gates. Realizing Saint Peter was a wise and knowledgeable person, he said, Saint, I have been interested in military history for many years. Tell me, who was the greatest general of all times?

Saint Peter quickly responded, Oh, that is a simple question. Its that man right over there, as he pointed nearby.

The man said, You must be mistaken, Saint Peter. I knew that man on earth and he was just a common laborer.

Thats right, my friend, replied Saint Peter. But he would have been the greatest general of all time if he had been a general.

Beware not to shortchange your potential. All people are created with the equal ability to become unequal. Those who stand out from the crowd have learned that all development is self-development. Growth is an individual project and the crowd will stand back to let a winner shine through.

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Steve Densley: Facing the 'what if' moment in each of our lives - Daily Herald