I Used Everything

Man is a bundle of uncountable traits, many of which go unnoticed & unused. One of the reasons that these traits are not used is that man himself is not sure about these. A good number of our traits are developed over the years. We work on some specific traits & become master of the same & think we were born only with these. The fact of the matter is that we are born with innumerable traits. We develop some traits that we come to know about but a large number remains latent throughout our life.

What are the reasons that we ignore the treasure house that we are sitting on? Prime reason is that we don't trust ourselves of having certain traits. On many occasions we come to know about a trait by chance & surprise ourselves with our achievements in that field. For instance, a child may learn about his talent for direction when he guides his classmates in some play in school in the absence of the actual director. And the child goes on to become a famous director! The question to be asked is what if the original director was not absent on that day!

Another reason is that we don't test ourselves. If we believe & do a random check on varied traits, we may find a good number of these waiting to be used. We wait for the opportunity instead of making one. So, we leave some of the wonderful talents to chance & that is the reason that despite gifted with a good number of these, we get to know only about a few. 

One more reason is that we wait for others' recommendation for our talents. If someone appreciates any of our talent, we give it another go & wait for another nod from some other person. It is like getting approval from my neighbor to use my own things in my home & if he disagrees, not using these. How funny! 

It is tragic that a wonderful gift like man remains unopened throughout the life. We do a great disservice to ourselves & to mankind by not opening it. It doesn't matter whether others like the articles in the gift or not; our job is to open the parcel & use every article in it otherwise we will live a limited existence. It will be a pity if I have to return God some of the articles of the parcel telling Him," Sorry God, I could not use all of these."

When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left & could say, - "I used everything that you gave me". - Erma Bombeck