“The Saddest Thing in Life is Wasted Talent”

I ever borrowed the movie “A Bronx Tale” from library, primarily because it is starred by Robert De Niro. To my disappointment, the movie tells story about gangs and violence, which didn’t interest me at all. After I got the line “The saddest thing in life is wasted talent”, I turned off the TV. This line is worthy of all my time watching it.

“The saddest thing in life is wasted talent”, I repeated this line to myself again and again. It is true. I have witnessed a lot of untapped, misplaced, and unrewarded talents. They don’t have money, social connection, a right advisor or an encouraging environment to make their talents into use. They have talents, but they don’t know what to do and how to do. With potential, they struggle with life pitifully. If they don’t do the right thing, their talents will be wasted.

It is about luck – when you are confused or constrained, a mentor happens to guide you or a person comes to help you; it is about timing -  when opportunity comes, you are mentally, spiritually and materially ready; it is about fortitude – after the darkest night is the sunlight, you ought to have persistence and determination; it is about initiative -  you got to find a way to create a situation for yourself if nothing happens by itself.

Be prepared when you wait; be grateful when you get; be watchful when you win.

Intelligence and Wisdom

Intelligence can be evaluated by well-designed exams, but wisdom is an abstract concept hard to explain. As my understanding, intelligence is the brainpower to understand specific knowledge, to learn new skills and to reason and analyze; wisdom is the insightful perception of people and the world, the willpower to handle change and stress, and the ability to make right decision at right time.

Intelligence and wisdom are codependent and intertwined. With enough intelligence, people can develop wisdom from accumulated experience; with enough wisdom, people can tap the full potential of their intelligence. Intelligence can help people to achieve highly in a particular area. Nevertheless, if you want to be successful in every realm of your life, you need wisdom to make right choice and balance your life. It is a blessing for a person to have both top intelligence and top wisdom. If I have to choose one, I think wisdom is better than intelligence.

I ever witnessed several very intelligent persons had miserable life and brought trouble to people around them. As an intelligent person has a sad ending, it looks more tragic than a brainless one does. What kind of life a person can have is determined by his attitude, philosophy and wisdom. A self-centered and narrow-minded person has trouble to understand the others’ feeling and is unable to get along well with people around him.

I was ever a self-absorbed person unable to handle stress. Under stressful situation, I couldn’t concentrate and couldn’t do anything well. When I was frustrated, my husband said to me, “Don’t worry, no one is faultless. Just use your strength more and develop your weakness.” His kind and supportive words relieved my anxiety.

When I was bothered by people’s gossips, my husband told me, “Do you know why some people are jealousy or mean? They are unhappy, unloved or insecure. Can’t you forgive them? When you forgive and let go, you will feel happy.” Therefore, I released myself from outside words.

I have a stress-free home, in which I can feast myself with good food, beautiful music, and edifying books, and I can have a comfortable beauty sleep to reenergize my body and brain cells. I think my husband is wise, He said, “Sure. At least I did a very wise thing, that is, I married you.” The ability to feel appreciation and gratitude is wisdom, too.

It is good to be intelligent; it is better to be wise. If you can not be wise enough, at least have a wise person around you who can help you build up right attitude and guide you to the right path of life.

The Way of Learning

There are three kinds of men, ones that learn by reading, a few who learn by observation, and the rest of them have to pee on the electric fence and find out for themselves.

-Will Rogers

 

I think Will Rogers left out one kind of men, who learn by listening. Most people learn by listening to the school teachers, to their parents, to the social educators and to the mass media. In school, listening is a prime source of information. Listen well and take notes thoroughly, you will have better chance to get a good grade.

 

As a visual person, I am a slow learner by listening. My mind is more focused when I am reading than when I am listening. I learn new skills fast by reading and practicing, so I spend a lot of time reading. Reading presents me a lot of mentors and friends I never meet and provides me a new platform of learning and growth.

 

I also learn through observation. Observing the other people and analyzing why they succeed or why they fail, we can save our time to find the right path to a successful life and avoid getting into a wrong way. Most People learn things by listening, reading and observing. 

 

Some people pee on the electric fence and find out for themselves. Don’t do that, it is dangerous. I heard that a man really peed on bare electric wire unintentionally in a freezing winter; he was shocked to death immediately. Don’t learn things in a hard way, the result can be disastrous or fatal. But if the disaster doesn’t kill you, it may break you down then build you up to a new person with a different mindset.