I've come to a pretty depressing conclusion [s4s] When

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I've come to a pretty depressing conclusion [s4s]

When I was younger, there was a PSA that would often play on Teletoon or YTV where all the young boys talked about what their passion or talent was, and it ended with the tagline; "nobody's good at everything, but everybody's good at something."

The more I thought about it, the more I realized how false it was. Nobody's good at everything, there simply aren't enough hours in the day or days in your life to do everything let alone be excellent at all of them. But most people aren't good at anything, and the few people who are good at something are typically good at many things.

And I realized it comes down to attitudes. Nobody is simply born innately talented at something, it takes effort and time and commitment. With that in mind, our success is largely determined by how we approach life and our personal traits. Someone who is very lazy or avoidant probably isn't good at anything, it's not in their nature to put in the necessary time and effort to achieve something, and they're not arbitrarily going to be good at one specific thing without practice or passion. But someone who is motivated or tenacious will achieve many things, they aren't going to simply stop at the first activity they become proficient at.

I think it's really dangerous to tell children that everyone is good at something, that they can just wait or anticipate that something they're innately good at from the beginning will eventually find their way to them. We should be fostering the personality traits and characteristics of achievers and winners in kids, not comforting them with the idea that even without hard work everyone is inherently good at at least one thing.