About the same time I wrote my blog “Lesson from Hollywood (1)” focusing on the importance of hard work, across the “pond” in Canada, unknowingly, my lovely 15-year old niece Cameron chose a similar topic called “Is There Really Such a Thing as Talent?” for her English class essay. It is excellently written with conviction and maturity. She has kindly agreed to let me share it with my blog readers. Enjoy the great read :>
“Is There Really Such a Thing as Talent?” by Cameron Yung
If we take a look at celebrities, famous athletes, top students, or the people who we aspire to be, we always wonder how they got to be so good at what they do or how they got to where they are. Some of them have special talents that can help them achieve their goals, but the ones who weren’t as lucky to be gifted had to put in lots of hard work and time to achieve success. That begs the question whether talent or effort is more important for success. I think hard work is more important than talent, because if you had talent but didn’t try to improve or work hard at it, your talent would be essentially be useless in comparison with those who aren’t talented, but put in lots of hard work and persevere to better themselves.
Some people were blessed to have been born with talent, but those with no talent and hard work can surpass those with talent and no hard work. Those with talent get a small advantage, but when they don’t try to maintain or better their gifts, people who weren’t born with talents will work hard to compensate for having no talent, and keep climbing until they eventually achieve their goals. A great example of this is one of Aesop’s fables, “The Tortoise and the Hare”. The hare was naturally born much faster than the tortoise, and he bragged about how fast he could run. The tortoise, which is an animal known for being slow, challenged the hare to a race. The hare, who became too confident in his own abilities, ran ahead of the tortoise and took a nap. The tortoise kept walking and walking, and never once did he stop. When the hare woke up, the tortoise had already passed the finish line. The hare is a metaphor for a person born with talent. He had an advantage of being faster, and he stopped halfway at the race to take a nap. This is like when talented people don’t improve or work hard. They will stop their progress, and eventually, the ones who are determined and work hard, like the tortoise, will beat those with talent.
With talent alone, you won’t be going anywhere. But you could achieve anything you want if you had nothing but hard work. If you had both, you would be unstoppable, but in comparison, hard work is much more important than talent to achieve success. As Kevin Durant said, “Hard work beats talent when talent fails to work hard.