I Was Once Gifted

Was it the curriculum? Or was it the expectations from our parents that strive us to do better than we think we could and turn us into the gifted one? Looking back into our academic results during primary school years, it was all ‘A’ or, if any, seldom ‘B’, which made our parents thought that they had bear a genius in the house that their future retirement plan is not a worry anymore. However, the ‘me’ from back then seem to betray the relentless passing time and never return again, and had me wondering if I had become dull or did I only just wake up from a dream after being slapped in the face by reality. So, am I really gifted? The evidence lies on how I could still remember the adolescent me that used to hide my result every time I got home from school, and looking at the ‘me’ right now thinking hard how to get through the day without making some stupid mistakes on assignment or work. It is no doubt that I am just an ordinary hard worker in the society, not even close to what they called me back then as ‘the gifted child’.

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Disappointments came and found its place when our vulnerability lies naked in front of everyone’s eyes, thinking that this kid is no longer special and bright, and he/ she had just outgrown the ‘smartness’ when growing up.

The only thing that I find compatible to the ‘gifted’ image is just my crankiness and weird ideas, which somehow we know that everyone do have their weird moments. Disappointments came and found its place when our vulnerability lies naked in front of everyone’s eyes, thinking that this kid is no longer special and bright, and he/ she had just outgrown the ‘smartness’ when growing up. Trying hard to make up the missing pieces, thinking how did I actually study and manage to get the outstanding achievements when I was younger, these are just barely enough to satisfy my sense of sanctity, and even if sometimes I got to get a good GPA, I still think that I was not making progress and rather believe that the good result came from something else, such as luck, but not my effort. Maybe it is due to my fear to feel disappointed again in the future, or that part of me that have not gotten used to the waves of uncertainty for anyone stepping into the society as an empty-headed novice.

I’m pretty sure that many of us are actually feeling the same, and if I were to rephrase what I said, it is as if we were stuck in an elevator that suddenly got filled up with a crowd, and looking at the door closing at the floor that we were meant to get down, going higher and higher with an empty mind. The past expectations that had on us as a ‘gifted child’ shape our perception of constantly being a step ahead of other to prove how good we are, and when one day we realized that our pace were getting similar to most of other people, even when we wanted to grasp a moment outside of life, we were not being able to as disappointment to oneself become the biggest fear that keeps us in the elevator that only goes up as we age.

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What a gifted child is, in many ways, is a gifted learner. And what a gifted adult is, is a gifted doer. And those are quite separate domains of achievement.

-Malcolm Gladwell

A quote from Malcolm Gladwell, the author to many masterpiece including Outliers, says ‘What a gifted child is, in many ways, is a gifted learner. And what a gifted adult is, is a gifted doer. And those are quite separate domains of achievement.’ In life, we do need to understand that there are many ways to define ‘giftedness’, which sometimes seems to be different to how we used to know. Whether we are the success in our own life is determined by nothing else than the way we give meanings to everyday experience. To learn what sparks joy in us and strive to bring out the best of ourselves is the ultimate goal in life that most of us tend to forget or ignored, but instead we focus on how many baggage we were carrying as we grow older, such as expectations from others and that embarrassing talk with your neighbour. They are just as insignificant as to bring one down to the zone of lost soul like how the movie ‘Soul’ has depicted, not to mentioned that it is a great movie to watch. Thus, as of what the quote above says, to find your own hobby and talent, your favourite talk show, just anything of such, could easily make you a gifted adult, and they are way more important than you think that could change the way one experience life.

It is nothing wrong to think that we were once gifted and not feel the same way right now. But as times move on, we will learn what fulfilling life meant to us, and how gifted we are as an adult that knows how to navigate joy and happiness, and to be capable to give it to someone else in our life.