Hi everyone.. I just wanted to share a quote i read in case it might be helpful for other people here...
It's from Kurt Vonnegut who is actually pretty problematic in his views of women, so i feel a bit awkward sharing it... sorry about this. i hope that no one finds it offensive that i'm sharing this.
I feel like maybe i shouldn't post this but i hope its ok.. here is what he wrote. i hope others might find this helpful too because it helped me feel like maybe i don't have to be as anxious about not being good at different things.. i'm still not there at all, but it felt like a little window opening... here is the quote:
“When 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 “getting to know you” questions you ask young people: Do you play sports? What’s your favorite subject? And I told him, no I don’t play any sports. I do theater, I’m in choir, I play the violin and piano, I used to take art classes.
And he went WOW. That’s amazing! And I said, “Oh no, but I’m not any good at ANY of them.”
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: “I don’t think being good at things is the point of doing them. I think you’ve 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.”
And that honestly changed my life. Because I went from a failure, someone who hadn’t 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 “Win” at them.”