The Possibilities

As I passed P.S. 11 today I looked at kids playing games on the playground and pondered all of the potential they represented. There are so many different possible outcomes for the many choices they will make in years to come. They face more choices now than they will face decades from now. It seems as if they are close to a peak of potential.

Then I thought about how potential gets whittled away as people age. One can try to influence certain outcomes, and sometimes reach a goal and sometimes not get what one strives to attain. Eventually, certain milestones are met and the possibility for reaching additional milestones narrows.

Possibility is intangible, yet exciting in a way that other intangibles are not. I would like to think that potential continues to emerge as people grow. Perhaps I have failed to recognize it.

I'm having surgery within the month to address a gynecological problem that can no longer be addressed with medication. It is complicated to have surgery now that I take blood thinners. There is a risk that I will lose too much blood.

After assessing the situation, my surgeon presented two scenarios. I can take the risk of going off of the blood thinners and have the standard surgery or I can have an alternative surgery while on blood thinners that is likely to decrease my fertility.

Although it is unlikely that I will have a child, I just couldn't intentionally further reduce the possibility of having one. I've decided to have the standard surgery with the bleeding risk.

Ironically, this situation leads me to recall a remark by a college professor that some environmentalists have virgin complexes. Sometimes I wonder whether my preservation of potential is similar. Do I stymie progress by attempting to maximize options?