Question of the day: HOW ARE YOU SPENDING YOUR TALENT?
A friend of this page just sent me this quote today, which I love, because I've been thinking (and speaking a lot) lately about the idea of the word TALENT.
The word "talent" comes to us from the ancient Greek word for a sum, a balance, or a weight. In the Roman empire, a talent was a unit of currency. You were paid, in other words with a certain amount of talent — your salary, your allotment, your share.
And so it is with our creative or intellectual or physical or emotional gifts, whatever they may be. We are ALL paid in some kind of talent or another when we arrive here on earth — a different sort of talent for all, and a different amount of talent for all. Some of us get a few coins; some of us get a sack of gold. But everyone gets something. What you then do with your talent is entirely up to you. You can turn your few coins into a fortune, or you can blow your sack of gold on booze and drugs and hookers and guns (so to speak). You can spend it all carefully, or invest it wisely, or squander it foolishly, or hand over your talent to another person for them to spend on your behalf. Worst of all, I think, you can fearfully bury your talent in a jar in your garden — hoarding it forever, because you're afraid of touching it.
So what are you spending your talent on?
And how do you get the courage and discretion to spend it in the wisest and most generative and beneficial way?
Do you have any stories of misspent, or properly spent, talents?
Remember, too, that the original definition of the word is "a weight". I think this is particularly important to keep in mind, because any talent which do you do put to use BECOMES A WEIGHT. It will burden you, and trouble you, and sit heavily upon your shoulders until you shed that weight…by using it.
And as with money, you can't take your talent with you when you go.
So maybe it's time to spend a little?
What do you guys think?
Be brave,
LG
