Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Talent

Everyone has talent.


Immanuel Kant is thought of as one of the most famous and revered philosophers that this world has ever known. It would take more than a simple blog post to go into all of the ideas he has shared with us. His position on how people should live their lives is based on duty - that is, people should do what they are morally obligated to do throughout their lives. Obviously, there are major objections to his philosophy, but for argument's sake, let's pretend for a moment that Kant is right. Performing one's duty is crucial to living a proper life.


There are several ways in which a person can fail to perform their duties. Some of these ways include breaking promises (it became your duty to fulfill what you said you would do), and committing suicide (regardless of your opinion of your own life, others still care about you, and it is your duty to be good to others). Another is to squander one's talents. You are in complete control of your own talent - and any disregard to hone those talents is a huge problem.


Talents are gateways. Every special skill or unique ability that any person has ever had, has lead in one way or another to a positive outcome. Nothing bad can come from developing your skills. Consider the opposite extreme: Your life is spent stagnating in a state of carelessness. The only things you experienced in life were a direct result of someone else's doing. Already, this sounds like a sorry state of affairs. This is exactly what every human on this planet should work hard to avoid. Knowing that every single person has something that they can contribute to the world that no other person has is the only reason needed for people to strive for dedicated talent growth.


Notice how I said "that no other person has." Whether you know of it yet or not, there is something that you can do that nobody else can. Arguably, everything that you do is completely impossible to replicate, so in a sense, you are the best at everything that you do. However, that doesn't mean that you can simply kick back and play the "unique card" whenever you want. Being unique doesn't mean you are entitled to not try. What life is there except for the one where people strive to be their best? It is our duty to be our best, and developing our talents is what gets us there.


The important thing to do is to just keep doing things. Don't sit around and wait for something exciting to come along. You can be that exciting thing if you just hone your talents to become it.

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