08 March 2015

under a bushel

we're watching this show about dick butkus and gayle sayers. they both were hall-of-fame football players. after football, dick went on to success in hollywood and gayle went on to success in business. they were highly successful followed by highly successful.

now, it's true that success builds on success. if these men hadn't been as successful in football, i doubt they'd have been as successful in their second careers. but what about their first success - how does that happen? why do some people rise above like that?

talent. hard work. obviously, it's got to be both. but above all, there has to be an exact match between talent and activity. you're talented and you choose the activity that you're talented in. sounds easy enough.

problem is, we end up choosing our path before discovering our talent.

sometimes we're tempted: glitz and glamor, money, power. sometimes it's just that we don't know what to do, so we do what our parents did or what our friends are doing. sometimes we don't have opportunity to choose. we're choosing ends over means, or not choosing at all - just following a default.

how do we get a better match for peoples' talents and their life-paths?

it's complicated. some people would rather make money than use their talents well. some people don't know what their talents are. some people have talents that they don't have the opportunity to use.

i don't know how to fix it for everyone, but i can work on fixing it for myself, and i suggest you do the same.





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