Our Talents

We all have talents. For some, it could be cooking, and for others, it could be coding. We all love to do one thing, and we excel at it beyond our comprehension. Now, do we use that talent for our livelihood is another question that I am not trying to ask. But we love to do that thing and also talk about it.

For me, it's reading and writing. Have I read all the classics? No. Am I a fast reader? No. Do U write the best in my circle? No. But if I hear a conversation in my vicinity about reading or writing, I chime in without any second thought, not because I'm the best, but because I feel I belong in that space.

That expression didn't come overnight. I struggled with an issue that I see everyone struggles with. "Confidence". The first thought the other person gets the moment I say I love reading and writing is that I'm overconfident. Well, at least that's what I thought. If I say I like the art of words, do they think that I'm boasting? Even if I talk about interests, what if they ask the deadly question of, "Is it? Are you that good? Are you better than us?" What then? Do I have the confidence to say that I'm not? Does saying no make me look bad? AM I that bad at this art? Don't I have the capabilities to excel in this art?

I used to hate going through the whole cycle. So I sat still. Though the urge to pitch into those conversations was high, I lay back. Though I know I have a better context of the topic being discussed, I kept my mouth shut. There were rare moments where I expressed my interest and spoke a bit, which then led to the next deadly sentence of "I have a friend who can read a lot faster than that." That would be the end of my involvement in that conversation.

The worst part of it all, I started losing interest in writing and reading. I talked less and less, making me feel alone in this journey. Making me feel I don't have the talent that many others have. Confidence leaks out drop by drop until you realise all that confidence is being filled by doubt and slowly hate.

Part of my life, I hated writing. I stopped writing. Even the ones I rarely wrote, I never shared. All those words kept swirling in my brain, but never came out. No. I didn't let them come out. It was as if a part of me was bound within a cage, where the cage was within a tornado of doubt and hate. I made sure that it never came out.

One night, I couldn't sleep. I sat and kept thinking about what to do. All these thoughts, I needed an outlet. Somewhere to open the valve into. It used to be writing. So, with great effort, did I open my old writings. It was as if the curves of alphabets, bad handwritings, stories I used to put out, all of them, got me like a blow. I opened a blank page, held onto my fountain pen, and put it on the paper. Ink slowly spread onto the paper from that dot, but no words. What to write? I don't know where to start writing. The cafe is trying to shred, but I've built it too sturdy. I don't know what to write. I am bad at writing. That's why I've stopped writing. I have no talent for putting out words.

Still, words came out one letter at a time. One after the other. Lines. Paragraphs. Pages. On and on. It was the worst writing to date. Even I didn't understand what I was writing. But I was writing. I was bringing myself back. I was crying without tears. I was crying with words on the paper.

That day I realised my talent is writing. I was neither good at writing nor bad. My talent was just writing. Since that day, I've gotten into so many conversations about writing that I've learnt a lot about the art than ever before. "Are you that better than us?" No. I'm not a great writer. I'm just a writer. If you are one too, I would love to talk about it.

That's confidence. Not overconfidence or underconfidence. Just confidence that I write. I've started utilizing it in everything. Do you love electronics? I'd love to talk. Am I a great electronics engineer? No, I'm not, but I'm more than happy to listen to it.

We all are good at something, and if you want to grow, you need to understand the fact that you aren't the best. Get into conversations rather than liking posts on Instagram about those topics. Real, tangible conversations. Let people share their interests, too.

What if you are degraded in a conversation you love about? Well, what's wrong with that? You can still listen to learn, or move on. In Steve Jobs's biography, there's a chapter where he is looking for display glass for his company's new innovation, "The iPhone". He went to the "Corning" company and asked for a specific type of glass. The CEO of Corning said it can't be done. He said glasses don't work that way. Steve Jobs went on a humiliation spree, stating that Corning doesn't know how to create glass. Corning's CEO got pissed, sat with Steve and explained him how a display glass production works, what materials are used, why those materials are used etc. Post that conversation, Steve Jobs signed a contract with Corning, and they are still making display glass for iPhones and all other displays. They have the highest market share in screen glasses. Either Steve Jobs could've moved away, or Corning's CEO could've skipped. But both of them were arrogant and curious with their talents, which brought out a revolution in the smartphone industry.

Be arrogant and curious with our talents as well, cause you are both best and worst at it; and it's fine.