What It's Like To Be The Least Talented Person In The Room

Everyone has their talents and gifts. No one is born without it.

However, looking back I remember a few people that I believed to be the most talented and gifted people I had ever met. They created without meaning to. They talked to the world and other people around them with easiness. Their words were like feathers peacefully swinging in the air.

And I remember myself feeling like the least talented person in the world.

Nothing came easily to me and even a single conversation could leave me deeply confused and sometimes even hurt.

It was not because I compared myself to those I believed to be the most talented ones.

No.

But in the room, when everyone started to shine and glow demonstrating their talents, I would be like a black foggy spot on the back.

In the world of fiction characters, I was a queen. In the real world – not so much.

I loved my imagination and since I always was the least talented person in the room, I preferred to stay in the shelter of my imagination.

While other people enjoyed the real life, I enjoyed plotting a fiction one.

In literature class, I would imagine being like the Russian poets, writing poetry by coping their styles and manner of speech. Later, I would read the written piece of poetry in front of the class claiming that it was written by a certain Russian poet. And though I am sure my literature teacher suspected there was something off with those never heard before pieces of poetry, she never called me out on it and so this is pretty much how I got all my high grades.

So, while the talented girls in my class were learning all the poetry pieces of the famous Russian poets by heart, I was cheating writing my own poetry.

While the talented girls in my class were following all the rules writing the best essays in the school, I was writing fiction chapters, narrating hard life and choices of fiction characters straight out of my head.

And while the talented girls were dancing in the hall of our school, I was singing in a hairbrush with high fever, wearing red sweatpants in front of the mirror in my room.

The contrast between my world and theirs was like the contrast between black and white.

But the idea of talent in my society was rather deceiving

Talent meant a supremacy of some kind.

It meant a privilege that only few could have.

What they really meant by calling you a talented person was that everything came easily to you, that you were lucky to be born under the wing of angels and gods to provide you with almost everything in your life.

For most of the grown up people around me talent could not be connected with hard work. Talent is talent, you either have it or you do not.

If it does not come to you easily, then it is not a talent.

See, nothing came easily to me. Especially, when people looked at me expecting a perfect performance (as a perfectionist to the core, my idea of perfect has been always something unreachable.)

I remember like every evening after long hours of my dance class, I would slowly trudge home, letting myself to cry out all tears of the disappointment I saw in the eyes of my teachers, so I could return there tomorrow ready to go through the same circle over and over again.

And though I showed great results when the actual day of stage performance came, the rehearsal hours were a true nightmare to me.

Again, because nothing came easily to me, my talent was under a big question mark.

But does talent equal to easy?

No, I do not think so anymore.

See, those people I believed to be the most talented people I had ever met were in fact great communicators. This is why it looked as if everything came easily to them. They knew how to present themselves and show their strength over weakness.

And though I am in no way saying that those people were not as talented as I thought they were, I do want to say that the only difference between their talents and my, as I believed back then, lack of such was in their masterful ability to communicate and present their ideas and themselves to the world.

I wish I knew this back then. But better later than never, right?

According to my observation, society is much faster to acknowledge the talent of natural communicators because it is hard to miss what is right in front of you. People are social creatures and communicative skills will be always highly appreciated by the society.

And though it leaves us, introverts, in a long waiting line, where all the self-doubts and self-disappointments get born, it does not mean that our talents are less than the talents of those who know how to present themselves.

Talent is a subjective game of one’s perception. And in no way should it be the reason for you or me to stop doing what we love and enjoy. In no way should it be the reason for you or me to stop dreaming big.

Thank you for stopping by today. I appreciate you and your time.

See you soon.