Talent

Too many times,
have I heard that talent
without hard work
is nothing.

The over-emphasis on hard work
can mask the fact
that talent is talent
precisely because
it’s not hard work.

Sometimes
we spend so much time
trying to get better at what is hard
at the expense of discovering how what comes easy,
our talent,
can be shaped
to provide significant value.

Intuition as Guide

It can be useful
to think of intuition
as a guide.

A guide does not claim
to have the right
answer.

A guide merely claims
to know something
worthy
of paying
attention.

We may choose
to ignore the guide.

We may also choose
to follow the guide
and learn what the guide
knows.

But may we not
blame the guide
for our decisions.

The guide never claimed
to have the right
answer.

Two Kinds of Sacrifice

There are two kinds of sacrifice.

The kind that feels like one.
vs
The kind that doesn’t.

Sometimes we’re willing to lose what other people judge as “precious.”
because it doesn’t feel like a sacrifice to us,
because we feel it’s worth it.
They may not be able to understand why,
but we do it anyway.

Other times, we’re unwilling to lose what other people judge as “trivial.”
because it does feel like a sacrifice to us,
because we feel it’s not worth it.
They may negatively judge us,
but we stand firm.

To think of loss and value
as something that can be understood and appreciated
without taking into account the emotional component
is to misunderstand and to misjudge
the human condition.

Efficient Use of Energy

Any time we have the urge to say “I disagree,”
It’s worth asking ourselves “What purpose am I hoping to fulfill?”

If the purpose of expressing disagreement is…

  1. To express disagreement, then spending our energy to express disagreement would likely be energy well-spent.
  2. To prevent something “bad” from happening, the energy may be better spent expressing our fear or concern of the “bad” thing.
  3. To ask the other person to do something, the energy may be better spent making a request to the other person.