Briefly, on Plateaus

I live in fear of the horizontal asymptote. 

I'd like to end this post here and now, leaving my readers with the image of a man who spends his days checking over his shoulder for a dotted line, but I suppose I must explain. 

No, I'm not afraid of calculus. Well, I am, but only superficially. What I want to talk about is much more serious than calculus (that is, if such a thing is possible; my AP calc teacher certainly wouldn't admit as much). I'm terrified of what the asymptote represents when considered in the context of my ambitions. 

For the uninitiated, an asymptote is a line that is constantly approached but never crossed by a curve. Here's a picture for reference: 

Now imagine that my goal is to be ever-improving, which it is. What if there was a point I could never cross? Oh God, what if I've reached the point already and don't even know it? This is the horizontal asymptote, my great fear. Of course, this concept could also be depicted as a plateau, although plateaus are much more survivable; it's not mathematically possible to cross an asymptote, while one may stagnate on a plateau for years before miraculously recovering. 

I'm not quite sure what the point of my life will become when I reach an asymptote. For so long I've strived for improvement; what else is there to do? These are chilling thoughts indeed. 

So there's my Big Scary Thing. I won't waste breath arguing that all asymptotes in life are really plateaus (and therefore roadblocks rather than dead ends) because I'm just not sure that's true. I also won't claim to know how to tell when one has reached an asymptote. But if life has taught me anything, it's that, whether or not we'd like it to, y continues to equal mx+b. There's no choice but to keep on living with it. 

Thanks for reading.

-TWTD