Potential Success

Today, I want to discuss your potential. We ask ourselves daily if we have reached our maximum potential. We quantify and measure our achievements and failures against our calendars, syllabi, to-do lists and outlines to see if we have accomplished our goals. We are bothered with the notion that we have not started our Christmas lists, assignments, lab reports, and other projects. While in my freshman year, sitting in an inorganic chemistry lecture, I remember learning about the “rate determining step”, which is the slowest step in a chemical reaction. If you have a chemical that explodes at 300 degrees Fahrenheit, then the absence of heat keeps the explosion from ever happening. Those chemicals we refrigerate, adorn with caveats and labels, remove possible heating elements and oxidizers, and train those that work with them to practice safe handling techniques. We do these things because once the reactants rise from 299 to 300, and the reaction begins, nothing will stop it until it is complete. Recently, I just returned from a trip to Indianapolis, Indiana. This concept of potential reminds me of the NASCAR Indy 500. All the fans, with their popcorn and cokes, are in the stands. The cars, with their freshly waxed frames, are revving their turbo engines at the starting line, but the man with all the power is the guy up on the platform with the gun raised in the air. Until he fires that round, the track will remain free from the sounds of screeching tires and the smells of burning rubber. Everything waits for him, like the reaction waits for the thermometer to read 300 degrees. What can this mean about our own potential? Does it sometimes feel as if there is someone out there, handling you with extreme care and polyurethane gloves or standing over you with a raised gun and a high platform, keeping you from starting down your own track toward success? The pivotal questions are: If the reaction happens or the race begins, are you equipped to handle the consequences? Have you cleared a space in your house? Where will you put your trophy? Take inventory of your life. What’s holding you back may not always be your lack of preparation for your goals, but for resulting success.

Our Carrying Capacity

Our kidneys are master filtration systems, processing about 200 quarts of blood each day to remove wastes and excess water.1 Glucose, the result of carbohydrate and some protein digestion, is the simple sugar that enters our blood stream and provides us with energy. In basic physiology, I learned of the Tm, which stands for the maximum capacity of the kidney’s transporters to process “dirty” blood and return “clean” blood to the blood stream. When the body is functioning properly, the kidneys normally reabsorb all of the glucose through these transporters and allow it reenter the blood stream, while removing all of the wastes to be excreted as urine. Although the kidneys are incredibly efficient, there is a limit to the amount that the kidneys can reabsorb. For example, in a person with poorly controlled diabetes, high blood sugar levels can stress the kidney’s transporters, causing them quickly reach and exceed their maximum transporting potential. Like trying to take a drink from a fire hose, not all of the glucose can be reabsorbed and is discarded as waste in the urine with other filtrates. Glucose is like our potential and what we have learned through the course of our lives. Many of the complex ideas, thoughts, lectures, presentations, sermons, and other information that we “digest” get broken down into forms that our minds can actually apply in our everyday lives. In the circulation of our thoughts, these glucose-like cognitions circulate until they can be used to guide us while seeing and doing. Unfortunately, though sometimes in our youth we rebel against it, there is a limit to the amount that we can do. Simply, there is a limit to the amount of potential we will have the time or resources to retain and make use of. Especially under the stress of cramming, intense studying, and heavy workloads, our cognitive glucose gets filtered and we lose some in the sea of forgetfulness. A really interesting thing about the body is that there are systems that function with or without insulin, a hormone that allows some tissues to utilize glucose. These can represent the things that you affect your safety and personal well being. For example, when you touch a flame or hot surface, it burns and you don’t touch it again. So what has the priority in your life? What do you refuse to forget? What keeps you sane? Start here! this is the beginning of finding your passions. Passions are those things you can’t live without. Whether or not you know you need them, they define you.


References:
1. http://kidney.niddk.nih.gov/Kudiseases/pubs/yourkidneys/