Everyone has Unique Abilities.
and do you use them?
We talk about it, “Everyone is unique”, and then our schools and workplaces do their best to make everyone conform to the same mould. Children are made to work hard at school to improve on their weak subjects, but not so often praised for things they have a natural talent for.
What this leads to is a person who perceives themselves as being a failure. They think about all the things they are no good at, but dismiss the things that they are good at as worthless, because that skill is easy for them and they have not had to work at it. It’s that old ‘work ethic’ thing. If you didn’t work hard to achieve something then it isn’t really an achievement.
But if the whole point of life, the point of us being here on Earth as incarnated beings, is for each of us to have fun and be happy (as many spiritual leaders say) then surely that is why we have things that come easily to us? Surely we are supposed to live our lives doing the things that we are good at and which we find easy.
Life was not meant to be a struggle.
There are enough people around with so many different talents and interests that there will always be people who like to do the things that we ourselves dislike. Then all eventualities are covered.
So work on your strengths and talents, and delegate the stuff you are weak at. This does not mean you have to employ a cleaner if you hate cleaning, there is probably someone in your family who doesn’t mind housework, and you may be the cook, or the baker, or the income earner…. The possibilities are endless.
Be proud of your Unique Abilities.
It took me a long time to be comfortable with the fact that I am pretty good at doing a couple of specific things, and pretty rubbish at anything connected with Maths, even down to basic arithmetic. One of my ‘talents’ is public speaking. I can stand up in front of an audience of 100s and quite happily talk with few notes if I know the subject well, and can give a talk from a written speech as well. But at school my maths was a problem. No-one mentioned the fact I was good at reciting poetry in front of the class, or being in the school play. Because, of course, to get a good job or University place you have to have maths O level (GCSE to you younger ones) . Somehow I managed to get into Teacher Training College with a grade F in Maths! However the public speaking ability was key to being a good teacher. Later I was in a job when I regularly had to give sales talks to colleagues and I was always praised for how well I did them, but I shrugged the praise off, ‘Oh, I don’t have to work at it, I’m just naturally good at it so it’s no big deal for me; I’m rubbish at maths though.’
You see, instead of letting my strengths shine out and working to the best of them I played them down and focussed on my lack of arithmetical ability.
Nowadays I do what I am good at. Writing, talking, teaching; and I use a calculator!
Namaste.
