Discovering Your Talents

I have a lot of hidden talents. The problem is I can’t find them. On some days I like to think that it takes real skill to choke on air, miss-step while climbing stairs and trip over absolutely nothing. Not everyone is able to pull this off.  It’s worse when you’re with a group of people and everyone is talking about their skills and talents, and you’re there like; well, I can breathe.

Multitalented. I can talk, annoy and irritate you all at the same time. It takes real dedication to pull this off. On a real though, talent is like electricity. We don’t understand electricity but we use it all the same. Isn’t it curious that we all have that one friend that finds a way of making everything innocent perverted? Yes you, I’m talking to you!

Lecturer: How can you fiddle with your phone and still manage to pay attention to what I’m saying?

Gottfried: Pure unadulterated talent, Sir.

Just because you haven’t found your talent yet doesn’t mean you don’t have one. Imagine finding out your talent as an 80-year-old man because you’ve been so immersed in poverty all your life, you never had the opportunity to look up. I’d be pissed if I discovered I could have won an Olympic medal for hopscotch. The pain!

Everyone has talent. What’s rare is the courage to follow it to the dark places where it leads. That fart you’ve been holding onto the entire ride? Drop it! Who knows, you could make it to 9’oclock news. I can already picture it. The headline will read, ‘Legendary fart kills 30 on a bus, maims two”. Authorities say the FARTER is still at large, armed, and very dangerous!’.

Talent hits a target no one else can hit. Genius hits a target no one else can see. Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius. I once met a beautiful lady at a park. I told her I wasn’t good at anything. She looked me in the eye and said, ‘survival is a talent’. I agree!

Sometimes you don’t get the talents you really need. Great, you just discovered you can chew ice. What are you supposed to do with that kind of talent? God really skipped artistry, creativity, athletics, and handed you the ability to chew ice cones. And you think all is well? Some people have the odd talent of making the most simple things sound complicated. Marry them!

No one respects a talent that is concealed. You might want to shove it in people’s faces every now and then. Because the truth is, everyone has talent at twenty-five. The difficulty is to have it at fifty. Talent is a dreadfully cheap commodity, cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is hard work. But make no mistake, never confuse the size of your paycheck with the size of your talent.

Talent is cheap; dedication is expensive. It will cost you one of your 9 lives. A little talent is a nice thing to have if you want to be a writer, but the only real requirement is the ability to remember the story. The human tragedy is that we all want to be extraordinary and we all just want to fit in. Unfortunately, extraordinary people rarely fit in. That being said, if you ever find that you’re the most talented person in the room…

find another room.

© Gottfried. All rights reserved