I'm not good at anything

I have thought this a number of times. Throughout secondary school, I always thought I was good at a number of things and more gifted than others. Once I had reached college-age, I was humbled to know that I was quite average and perhaps below average in what I thought I was so great at.

This realization first occurred when I attempted the field of music. Thanks to the great encouragement (and quite frankly, force) from my mother, I started my college career by majoring in vocal performance.

Throughout my life I had been praised for my voice and had often been told I was talented and could actually do something with this skill. I learned very quickly that I was much like any other music student—and some were much more gifted and skilled than I was. In addition to this, my dang vocal chords couldn’t seem to adapt to the slight increase of elevation and I got nodules on my vocal chords. Nodules for a singer is the equivalent of broken knee for a marathon runner, or broken hands for a surgeon. I flunked my first class in which I had to sing in front of a jury. Not only was I mediocre, I couldn’t even pass the class. How embarrassing.

I then went to Communications as an area of study. My father had always been a manager of television stations, and I figured I understood it well enough I could be successful and maybe perhaps do rather well in comparison to my peers. Again, I was humbled to know that I was much like any other communication student, and didn’t have much of an advantage like I had presumed. Everyone was technologically savvy and seemed to know the ins and outs of this field. Everyone was on top of their current events and everyone knew what the latest gadget was in the developing world. As for me, I had mastered the art of the flip phone and was grateful my phone could send texts as well as take pictures. I had no idea what Twitter, Instagram, 4-Square or Pinterest was and couldn’t seem to grasp the concept or purpose of blogging.

I joined a student run program designed to help the communications students learn what field of study they would like to study more in depth and persue in careers. Once again I found that I was not good at the things I most certainly thought I would like to study. I could in no way excel at public relations. I was no good at advertising. I had zero knack for broadcasting.  More than ever, I felt lost and confused. Everything I thought I had a possibility at excelling at I realized were not realistic options for me. 

It wasn’t until I had a very poor job interview that I realized what it was I enjoyed doing the most.  I realized I didn’t care about advertising. I didn’t care about broadcasting, or PR. I enjoyed writing. I felt value getting my thoughts on paper to have the world to read. I had finally found something I cared about, and I was able to see almost instantly that what I had previously lacked was passion. 

Sometimes we do feel like we are not special at anything or are one of a kind. More often than not, someone is better than us at an activity. Rarely, if at all, are we ever the absolute best at something. But we all have our individual talents and gifts and we all excel at different things.