Discover Your Talents

Celebrate Your Gifts

Issue #62

Are you aware of your talents and gifts? I was fifty years old before I realized my voice was a gift. In recent years, I have learned that I have a talent for geographic memory. I can visit a place, return five to ten years later, recognize landmarks, and find my way around.

We discovered that my wife has a photographic memory. She could repeat the textbook paragraph by paragraph on her essay tests in school. Teachers accused her of cheating. My wife taught herself to change her dreams when she was a child. If she had a nightmare, she would change the dream. Today, scientists call it lucid dreaming.

We all have talents and gifts that we don't realize we have. What are your hidden talents? Have you discovered your gifts?

I have struggled much of my life to find myself and my place in this world. I have never been satisfied, always wanting to do more, to accomplish more. I wanted to be a famous writer. But instead, my success came through my speaking. While I have published 14 books, my readership is small, and my paycheck is even smaller. Yet, somewhere along the way, I learned to accept who I am and trust that I am doing what I am supposed to do. I touch people's lives with my words.

I wrote the words quoted above when I turned fifty. Today, I am 75, and I have learned not to struggle against myself and have accepted who I am and my strengths and limitations. I have learned to hug myself and to love who I am.

Have you learned to love yourself and believe in your talents? Do you appreciate your life and accept your strengths and weaknesses? None of us is perfect, and our lives are not ideal, but we lead the lives we have chosen through our thoughts and actions.

Plant seeds of hope in the hearts of others!