Cultivate Your Talents

You came into this life with advantages preset.

You arose into being with talents predetermined.

We each have innate skills that emerge from seeming nothingness throughout our lives--abilities we possess in greater degrees than our peers in existence. And those inborn opportunities for excellence never arise without reason.

The talents you possess are gifts given by forces divine, presenting you with unique opportunity towards excelling in certain activities and fields. And whilst most take their intrinsic abilities for granted, never should you make that mistake--because only through deliberate recognition and cultivation of those powers can you thank the universe for providing those gifts and manifest competitive advantages sustainable throughout your life.

Assume for a moment that the universe works upon principles of intelligent design. Equally accept the premise that very little in life occurs upon raw coincidence.

Under the auspices of that set of premises, no talent you possess innately or ability you have over others manifested through coincidence. On the contrary, the universe gave you those gifts so you could wield and hone and refine them all into states of mastery throughout your current sojourn in corporeal existence.

That duo of assumptions might run contrary your believes, but entertain them still--because they offer the greatest chance for maximizing your opportunities throughout this existence.

To understand the point, consider a simple analogy. When enjoying a role-playing game and building a character, it makes little strategic sense to create a mage then level him up like a fighter. With ostensibly high intelligence and low strength, never will that individual maximize his innate advantages if you ignore them entirely.

Your jaunt through material reality is exactly the same. If your abilities tend towards mastery of languages and an innate talent at writing, you'd be doing yourself a massive disservice if you ignored those abilities and instead devoted yourself towards practicing other abilities at which you possess less talent.

For myself, for instance, I have a rather natural ability towards eloquent wordplay and a corresponding weakness towards attaining simple comprehension of complex math. Thus throughout school I took my mathematical abilities no further than required and devoted myself towards study of language first then eventually law. And because I gravitated towards my strengths, I managed pass the bar on my first attempt with a score that ranked in the top three percent--and all that I did whilst hardly studying a fraction much as my peers who regrettably never enjoyed those inborn advantages.

By maximizing the proverbial "build" of the character I'm playing in this life, I made my runthrough of corporeal reality much simpler. And I essentially downgraded the difficulty of this game we're playing to easy compared against those who, instead of going with the flow and cultivating their innate talents, decide instead towards constantly wading upstream resisting the rhythms of reality.

So think about it for a second. Really try and determine what unique abilities and innate talents you have that offer you a competitive advantage over others. Then examine how well you're currently developing and optimizing them compared against the time you spend working towards unlocking the metaphorical skill tree of your persona in counterintuitive directions.

Are you wasting countless hours a week practicing a sport at which your form is ill-suited?

If you're doing it for fun, keep going. But if you're working at it towards getting a scholarship or playing at a high-level, you'd be far better suited picking something unto which your body-type naturally gravitates.

Are you spending countless dollars pursuing a course of study that runs contrary your abilities?

If you're doing it because it's your dream, never stop. But if you're simply doing it because someone else pushed you in that unnatural direction, seriously consider changing your major/coursework towards something that falls within the range of your innate abilities.

We each come into this world with abilities innate and advantages immense. And whether they arise as the result of complete randomness or intelligent design, still your best chance for succeeding easily at life involves maximizing every innate power the universe bestowed unto you.

Commence working with the currents of corporeal reality rather than fighting against them.

Cultivate your inborn talents unto their ultimate limit, and readily they'll bring you aloft unto endless heights.

S&F..
You do have a point Man..I've started building little car models for the fist time since 18 yrs.Anyway it takes my mind away from a bad crowd..

a reply to: Trachel

I have a better idea...

Work at something until you master it. Be realistic, set goals, stop thinking about fate and predetermination. Are you a skill musician? You can be a typist.

Great artist?

You can be a great engineer.

Nothing at all?

Hit the books and get interested in how the world works. We're all victims to our birth but we can choose to work our asses off to figure stuff out. Want to be a goddamn engineer? WORK AT IT.

That's all.

A jack if all trades is a master of none.

a reply to: Trachel

S&F for some very good advice which I will be passing on to the rest of the family because you are so right.

It's one idea. It is the most common idea in France- in fact most young people are steered by the educational system into their career dependent upon what areas they show strength in- not personal choice. I mean, it is possible to buck that system (my husband did) but most kids don't bother, because aiming for activities that you find challenging is simply not a value they have grown up with.

I've always been one to feel attracted towards whatever was challenging to me. Soon as I find it difficult, I want to do it.
I was afraid of galloping on a horse, so of course, became obsessed with learning to be a good rider. When young, I hated the focus upon superficial appearences, and went into cosmetology school. As soon as I found out my tennis elbow was chronic, probably for life, I HAD to learn to play drums. I do not have a head for numbers, I actually have a problem keeping them in mind for even a second- and I spend all off time doing Sudoku.
It's either stupid, or a continual search to overcome my limits, that I get a high off of.

Regardless, though I profit personally from these challenges, as far as my work goes, I must admit that I repeatedly tend to slide away as soon as the skill is basically mastered. I don't want to continue. I lose the passion. Even if it was my life for years, once I've gotten over my struggle, I'm on to another challenge.

A job that I found so unchallenging at first I didn't feel nervous on my first day, turned out to be comfortable enough that I'd like to stay there for the rest of my life. But it is exactly what I am good at naturally, it fits my personality. It doesn't have that exciting edge of stress, but then, maybe it is an age thing- at a certain age, you kind of feel ready to just be comfortable with who you are what the genetic lottery gave you?

I don't know. I'm still trying to learn those drums, despite the pain, so I guess the settling hasn't completely won yet.