Talent is not enough.
"Don’t worry, I know you’re not doing it on purpose."
Hi guys,
Hope you are well. I’m doing okay, Alhamdulillah.
I write this at 8:29 pm on a rainy Sunday evening. For the first time since April, I genuinely feel rested after a weekend. Work has been my life over the past month or so, and while I had previously anticipated that it would be a difficult couple of weeks due to delivering on multiple key deliverables, I still struggled to work, rest, and effectively function in other areas of life.
Bi idhnillah the worst is behind us, and I hope the next few weeks return to some semblance of balance. Paraps I will finally find the time x headspace to reply to the numerous messages, missed calls, and emails.
Paraps.
You can’t outrun Biology
In the past few days, I spent some time with someone who had known my Dad in his twenties. We spent a lot of time together, and she shared many of her views (and requested mine) on work, life, love, religion, tradition, and more. She is also a highly sensitive person, and more perceptive than the vast majority of people I have interacted with.
Anyhoo, we were having one particular conversation and she was trying to convince me of a particular point. I completely disagreed. I did not indicate my disagreement (out of respect) and was planning to listen, engage if needed, and ultimately proceed with what I believed was feasible anyway.
So she was speaking, I was listening, and then she paused. Noticing that she paused almost mid-sentence, I looked at her almost to check if everything was okay.
She said, “When your Dad was much younger, if he disagreed with someone but did not want to confront them for whatever reason, he listened to them, and reflexively closed his eyes and started smiling. I just realized that is exactly what you’re doing now.”
I was so shook. 🤯
I hadn’t even realized my eyes had partially closed while she was speaking, and had no clue I was smiling either. How could she tell?
Almost in my thoughts, she continued.
“Don’t worry, I know you’re not doing it on purpose. Things like this are completely subconscious for most of us, we don’t even know we do them. Just that I’m a very observant person and I made the connection.”
I was dazed. Here I was trying not to give away that I disagreed 100% with her take, and my biology gave it away on my behalf! 😅
It just made me realize that we can’t outrun Biology. While humans of today are seemingly much more advanced than our predecessors from thousands of years ago, we still have many of the same physical and emotional features.
We still pee in the same way, we still feel the same yearning for love x fulfillment, we still have similar tendencies to believe in a higher power, we still cry or laugh due to pain or joy, etc. The list is endless. In some ways, we are the same men and women as our ancestors. But they would of course find it weird that you are consuming this much content on a little ‘magic’ screen. 😅
The golden generation
I spent about 2 hours today watching a documentary on Wayne Rooney, a Manchester United and England football legend. The entire thing was very interesting, but something else caught my attention.
Rooney was part of England’s “golden generation”, a group of super-talented British footballers that were seen as world-class and sure to deliver international football trophies (World Cup, Euros, etc) to the Three Lions between 2002 and 2010.
It was such an amazing team, with multiple football legends like David Seaman, Sol Campbell, Rio Ferdinand, Ashley Cole, Gary Neville, John Terry, Paul Scholes, Michael Carrick, Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard, David Beckham, Michael Owen, Wayne Rooney, Shaun Wright-Phillips, Theo Walcott, Peter Crouch, and Jermain Defoe.
Wowza!
But you know what?
Not only did the “golden generation” never lift a single trophy, they never even made it past a quarter-final. In fact, they did not qualify for Euro 2008, the first time in more than 20 years that England was not part of a major tournament.
Why did they so underperform so much?
We can try to analyze why from today till tomorrow (and numerous pundits have tried), but the key takeaway for me is that talent is not enough. The majority of people reading this are young people, probably super smart, super intentional, and with a bright future.
Don’t let it get to your head. To “win” involves talent, yes, but it also involves sacrifice, collaboration, hard work, grit, and good fortune. Thinking you “have arrived” just because of some leading indicators about your performance at school or work will be premature.
Talent is never enough. Put your head down and do the work.
** Jara content:
“The art of emotional wintering is about accepting these times in our lives when we will fall through the cracks. It’s about taking advantage of rest and retreat to heal, grow, and discover new things about ourselves.”
- John P. Weiss, The Art of Emotional Wintering
Have a great week. ✨
When you too much believe in your talent that's when you started killing your self.
We can't just outrun Biology, sometimes my mum would look at me and say you remind me of your Dad (of the blessed memory). We are just a footprint of our ancestors.