"You Can Do Anything You Want To!"

When I was a kid, I was constantly told by my teachers and mentors that I was so smart and talented that I could do anything I wanted to in life and I'd be GREAT at it. I could change the world, if I put my mind to it! I know they were just trying to be encouraging, just trying to encourage me to push for the stars (you never know how far you can go if you don't try for the nigh impossible, right?). For me, though, I took their wishes of greatness for me and turned it from encouragement to an expectation I was cursed to constantly strive for and fail to live up to.

Over the course of my life, I have tried my hand at so many things. I have studied the hard sciences, following my studies with both working in a lab and teaching. I have studied and worked in the natural health field, doing everything from retail to administrative work in clinics. I have dipped my toes into a myriad of other subjects and opportunities along the way.  

I have always been lucky enough to have the kind of learning curve that meant it never has taken me long to be "good" at any new thing I try.  My lab work was good. I was a good teacher, a good salesperson, a good administrative assistant.  I wasn't great.  I wasn't great because I wasn't good at caring about any of these things beyond their symbolism in terms of what I viewed as society's interpretation of "success."  And, wherever I wan't "great," I tended to fail.

Over the course of the past year's journey of self-discovery, I've been thinking about this a lot. I've wondered why I kept failing. Why, as I've reached my mid-thirties, I've felt like I was disappointing all of the people who said I could do anything I wanted to…why, in reality, I couldn't.

So, recently,I've been working on a new theory of mine: No one can "do anything they want to." We each have one or, at most, a small few things that we can truly be great at, that we are "meant" to do.  These cannot just be anything we enjoy or anything we work hard at.  

To truly be great at something, it takes loving it, being good at it (having some base talent to work with at least), and it coming naturally. Naturally. In the sense that it is something that you would do anyway, whether or not you get paid for it. 

For me, the thing that has always come naturally - almost compulsively - was writing & reading, though I spent many years trying to resist going into such a nerve-wracking profession. For one of my best friends, whose journey of finding herself over the past year I've been lucky enough to be witness to, it is food. For my husband, animal care. I could go on. 

The point is, each of us is already, automatically, working towards the thing we're meant to do, whether we realize it or not, whether it is manifesting as a viable career option or not (whether or not it ever manifests as an option for making the money we need to live). We need to pay attention to the things we are already doing, the things that we love...follow them...and remember, it is us, in our hesitation and doubt, our expectations and disappointments in ourselves, that lead us astray. The strange pull of the things we really love never will.