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What are Your Gifts?
I was inspired by an idea from Dr. Bastiat’s post on intelligence. @django mentioned that he was a person who could see things outside the standard patterns that others missed. That’s quite a gift. I was thinking that each of us (unless you’re a young whippersnapper) knows our gifts, especially those that we appreciate and others do, too!
For example, I have been told in certain environments when things are confused and chaotic that I can see into the heart of the matter, and can clarify the situation for others. I like having that ability and having it appreciated. I also have convinced people that I am a person who handles conflict well and tend to be balanced and even-tempered on Ricochet. You should see me in real life! Actually, my experiences on Ricochet have helped me grow a great deal in this regard, so I consider those of you who have “triggered” me to be my teachers. Thank you.
I’m sure many of you have dozens of talents that you treasure and that have been appreciated by others. Or you may treasure them and others hate you for them. Or others love them and you hate them. H.m.m.m…. I thinking I’m getting sidetracked.
Anyway, would you mind sharing your gifts? Rather than just artistic gifts (which you are welcome to include), you might think of the gifts you have that show up in your interactions with others.
So, what are your gifts?
Published in Culture
BTW, if you have a thousand gifts, you might want to prioritize.
I once had a softball coach who said I was his most versatile player. He could put me in every position and know I’d get the job done. But I was not by any means the best in any of them.
I’m like that in real life, too. I have my fingers in a lot of pies, but I’m not an expert in anything. If you need someone in a pinch, I can fill a need until you find someone more suited.
Although I have a math, science, and engineering background (thanks to my God-given intelligence), I also have a vivid imagination that started to flourish in the mid-1990s when I started writing novels.
I think one gift I’ve discovered late in life is the ability to come up with a neat, slightly unusual idea, then wrap a plausible story plotline around it. Stay tuned . . .
That truly is a gift, Stina. That versatility can make you very popular! And helpful!
Wonderful, Stad. I think it is especially lovely when we discover our gifts late in life. I’ll keep watching . . .
I’m the one your mother warned you about. It’s a gift.
HA HA!!! Actually I put the warning in comment#1 because of you–the man with a thousand gifts!!
Susan, it may well be that my gift is to be disagreeable, blunt, and obnoxious enough to have “triggered” part of your growth. Something like an annoying woodpecker who keeps waking you up and ripping apart the lovely woodwork on your gables, thereby inspiring you to become an expert markswoman!
I like to think that I have a bit of a gift for humor, too.
If I had “gifts” I probably took them back and exchanged them for something totally worthless. That is, if I could have found the receipts in the first place.
I have talents, including writing and a strong sense of direction (ironic considering the twenty years I spent as a navigator involved doing linear algebra in a room that never moved).
However, my real gifts were Quilter and are my three sons. My computer crashed three weeks back. Janet built it originally and is unfortunately unavailable to provide tech support. My youngest came down last weekend and fixed it – including adding a new board filled with card readers and USB ports he kicked in as a birthday present. He is in Fort Worth and I am in Houston.
I’m very leery of the term “gifts” as it tends to shortchange things we’ve worked hard at perfecting, or else it suggests that we’re somehow extra special in having innate talents – way too many people get wrapped up in trying to find “their gifts” as if finding a talent will somehow magically sparkle and slot them into their destiny. They end up horribly disappointed in life as they try in vain to find a career that lines up with “giftedness” in some field, never realizing that they need to learn skills through work and practice. I’m not trying to short-change genuine talents (like being able to freehand draw photo-realistic depictions of things), but those sorts of things we tend to stumble across, or because a situation demands it, or because we just gravitate towards certain kinds of work.
For instance, I was the weirdo in the Boy Scouts who volunteered to be the quartermaster because the disorganization of the troop’s supplies annoyed the heck out of me. But I had to learn what exactly was necessary and why, and that meant a few times where I got in trouble with troop for forgetting things. I had to learn the skills. And in every job since, where similar skills have been required, I also have had to work to learn the systems, or the organizational theories at play. Mind you, I like that sort of work, but whatever my underlying talents or inclinations might be, I’ve still had to work at it.
I think the only thing I’d qualify a “gift” is pedantry (see the last 2 paragraphs as a working example), but it’s a gift few actually want.
As long as you don’t bury your talents in the garden.
I’m afraid my true “gifts” are dour pessimism, dogged stubbornness, and free-floating anxiety.
Sure.
I see how it is!
You do have, Jerry. Now if I could just get you to read, not just skim my posts, we’d be in great shape! Just remember–I have glock!
They’re resting on top of your sense of humor stack!
Gifts, indeed. And I suspect you are to all of them as well, @seawriter.
And we love them all!
That approach to gifts is a sad, misleading mistake. I think a gift is much different. First of all, for me, they just show up. I didn’t set out to get clarity or even to be a decent writer. The “seed” showed up, and my curiosity moved me to explore it further. Same thing with my patience (although I did want to be more patient). Trust me: I was not patient at all 30 years ago. (Just ask my husband.) I think the seed was there to be patient, and I nurtured it, because ultimately I cared about my relationships. I am not always patient, but I am lots more patient than in the past.
So gifts may just be seeds that we can choose to develop, sometimes with hard work, or not.
Smart aleck! You’re a musician. Tell me what you play, @aaronmiller.
It has been years since I recorded anything. I’m one of those jerks Skipsul mentioned whose natural talents led to lazy habits. I can start a new song in about 5 minutes and compose in a variety of styles using whatever instrument. But I’m also a clumsy performer, which makes recording infuriating.
Wow!! That was so cool! I like the Irish music. Thank you so much for sharing it, Aaron. Really beautiful!
Thinking about it, my greatest gift is analysis and synthesis. I have gone into companies and rebuilt their visions of who and what they were, basically pointing out the lies they were telling themselves. I take all of their ideas of who they are and how they do business and pull those apart to see what is there, what’s missing, and what could be there. I identify their leverage points for change. I create visions for the future.
I have done the same thing in my various pursuits, such as writing and with poetic forms. I have done the same with being an effective board member, although I have yet to publish the book that resulted. I see all of this as being the same well-developed gift.
I don’t know that we are always the best judges of our own giftedness. I work with a man who likes to tell people that he has the gift of encouragement. His co-workers would tend to disagree. But he’s gone through life assuring everyone that, yep! that’s his gift!
I’m sure that’s true@drewinwisconsin. I can’t count the number of people I worked with who thought they were “good managers,” and were stunned to find out they weren’t; lots of them were never even told. This point gets into one of my major pet peeves: people who think they’re doing a good job and never received feedback that they weren’t because they had lazy bosses. I know all the excuses for not giving negative feedback, and in my book, they don’t cut it. It’s terribly unfair to the employee who has no clue.
Routinely low emotions. The one situation that tends to raise my emotion to unacceptable levels is another’s insistence on emotion or ‘feelings’ where the basis for that response has been demonstrated to be inappropriate.
One man’s pedantry is another man’s lucid and clear writing.
Mr. She is fond of saying, “sometimes our greatest strength is also our greatest weakness and vice versa.” And I think that’s true.
I’m good at multitasking. That probably means that every once in a while I don’t pay as much attention as I should to a specific issue/concern, and that I probably miss a thing or three.
I’m extraordinarily stubborn. That means, if it’s a task that must be done, I’m your girl, but if it’s less important, or not all that meaningful, perhaps I’ll try harder than I should.
I’m very loyal to both people and ideas. And therefore find myself, not infrequently, invested in a hopeless cause (see “extraordinarily stubborn,” above).
And so on.
A gift I appreciate and did absolutely nothing to earn is remarkably low (almost too low) blood pressure, and I’m generally pretty level-headed and don’t get too worked up in a crisis.
This reminded me of a guy I used to know who had the gift of “this will interest you.” He believed that everything he said was of enormous importance to all, and that we all sat waiting, hanging on his words.
When his conversation started out, as it often did, with “This will interest you,” we all went temporarily deaf.
Sometimes I think we miss our “gifts” completely. We don’t take them seriously because our “gifts” annoy the people around us. For example, I used to talk very fast. I drove everyone nuts. I don’t do it anymore–at least I try not to. But one night I was listening to a newscaster convey the news at a pretty fast clip, and I thought, “Hmm. Maybe I was supposed to be a newscaster!” :-) I never thought of it. :-)
Yes, that annoys me, but I’m from Georgia.