All human beings have natural abilities, absolutely everyone; Most of us even have more skills than we realize we have. Recall the story from the scriptures about a man who, before leaving on a long journey, called three of his employees to distribute their goods to them to handle in his absence. Curiously, the current currency of that time was called “talent”. Thus, to one he gave ten talents, to another five and to the last one. When he returned from his journey, he gathered them together and asked for accounts of what he had received. The first gave the ten received plus the same amount that he got by putting them to work; the second also doubled his quota and the third simply returned the talent received, since for fear of losing it he kept it until the return of his employer.
As a child I participated in various baseball teams. To be honest I never excelled in this sport, however I liked it a lot, to date I enjoy watching the games. When entering adolescence I discovered soccer. I not only loved this sport, but I also realized that I had more skill to practice it than I had with bats and gloves. Obviously playing it to an acceptable level allowed me to enjoy it more than baseball. Another sporting activity I practiced was long distance running. Although I was not one of the first places, my performance was not bad, especially if it was competitions of more than ten kilometers.
When I went to live during a school year in the United States, I joined the athletics team because in the town where I lived there was no soccer team. Unfortunately for me the longest competitions were sixteen hundred meters; too short and fast for me. For the same reason I was forced to join the walking team. I had never practiced that discipline. The mere thought of having to move my hips in a funny way made me sad. However, the team coach gave me only two options: start on the march or leave the athletic team. I chose the hike despite its "sexy movement".
To my surprise I turned out to be an excellent mariner. Most of the time he finished the competitions between the first three positions. I discovered that he had more ability for walking than for long distance running. This event allowed me to realize that human beings have more talents than we are using. I remember a friend who, before turning forty, painted her first painting. I had never tried before. Now painting is one of her main activities and passions, and she does it very well.
Let's realize, we are great at something we haven't tried yet. To discover it we only have to dare to practice new or different activities. I invite you to dare to try it. Perhaps it requires retaking tastes, hobbies and practices that he abandoned since his youth and that he liked so much, I assure you that you will not regret it. When thinking about gifts and talents do not think only about sports and artistic activities, remember that there are many other skills that we usually ignore and that are also important and satisfying: knowing how to listen, give advice, analyze situations, synthesis skills, language learning, ease for human relations, cooking, baking, distinguishing and identifying smells, sense of orientation, handling computers or computers, having a sense of humor, coordinating activities,lead people and many others.
Returning to the biblical story of the man who distributed the talents, this man, knowing what each of his collaborators had done with what he had given them, returned to the first two all the talents that they had and had reproduced (at one twenty and the other ten). As for the fearful, he simply took the good from him and gave it to the one who was twenty. The lesson is simple, the skills we possess are gifts from God for us to use, not to hide.. When we use them they reproduce and each time we have more or are more skilled. Let us not allow fear, shame or conformity to prevent us from enjoying all the skills we have received. I am convinced that our talents have a lot to do with the enjoyment of life and even income that we can generate. After all, whoever is good at something enjoys it and does it well and when that combination appears, generally what is produced is true prosperity.
