Wasted Potential is Worse than Wasted Effort

Ecclesiastes chapter 11 says that whoever watches the wind will not plant.  

A man like this finds weather conditions for planting to be unideal every time he contemplates the endeavor.  So he never does it.  This is an example of a man saving effort by wasting potential.  

Compare this to the main that waits for tolerable conditions to plant instead of ideal conditions.  Or even one that plants in conditions that may be extremely far from unideal because he has no choice.  He may be wasting his effort, because the seeds may not grow.  But if they don't, he's ultimately not much worse off than the man that didn't plant at all, and may actually be substantially better off if luck is on his side.

The man that never planted at all only has one thing as the result of his effort-saving.  An excuse.  "Well, the weather wasn't good," he might say.  And he might be correct.  But that will be of little comfort if his neighbor DID plant in weather that wasn't good and actually got something as a result of it.  Are excuses really so comforting that they're worth wasting potential on?

I see this in young men online who get discouraged by the admittedly bad job market.  Entering the job market wasn't easy for me in my 20's either, and I remember the job search not being a fun experience.  I don't want to go through it again if I can avoid it.  I can sympathize.  But it never entered my mind at that time to totally give up on working for a living, because I knew that wouldn't end up going well.  I wanted to at least TRY to ultimately end up with more than just an excuse in my life if I could.  I'd rather fail making the continuous attempt and wasting the effort than not even make the attempt and waste the potential.  And in my case I did fail for a while, but not forever.  What at that time seemed like an eternity of wasteful effort is now in the long-distant past.  The effort ultimately paid off, and I believe more often than not, effort tends to do just that, if someone can just hold out and exercise consistency and patience.

So anyone in a tough position where effort doesn't feel like it's going anywhere, remember the trade off, and keep taking the chance.  Because wasted potential is even worse.