(via hornedchick)
Kurt Vonnegut wrote: âWhen I was 15, I spent a month working on an archeological dig. I was talking to one of the archeologists one day during our lunch break and he asked those kinds of âgetting to know youâ questions you ask young people: Do you play sports? Whatâs your favorite subject? And I told him, no I donât play any sports. I do theater, Iâm in choir, I play the violin and piano, I used to take art classes.
And he went WOW. Thatâs amazing! And I said, âOh no, but Iâm not any good at ANY of them.â
And he said something then that I will never forget and which absolutely blew my mind because no one had ever said anything like it to me before: âI donât think being good at things is the point of doing them. I think youâve got all these wonderful experiences with different skills, and that all teaches you things and makes you an interesting person, no matter how well you do them.â
And that honestly changed my life. Because I went from a failure, someone who hadnât been talented enough at anything to excel, to someone who did things because I enjoyed them. I had been raised in such an achievement-oriented environment, so inundated with the myth of Talent, that I thought it was only worth doing things if you could âWinâ at them.
