Generally speaking, as a society we are constantly failing on 'bringing people to live up to their potential' of sorts.
It's an endless grind mixed with a lottery and there's a lot of people never even discovering their talents because they are too exhausted, depressed or outright scared to try.
I don't remember who wrote it, but I've read a Polish poet's diary from 1920's, he was riding a train and saw miners and contemplated on how many musicians, poets, painters and engineers of them are forced into pointless hard work that destroys them.
And I feel that.