gift envy--you've been tagged!

I really liked what Auntie Lee said in her last comment about enabling our children to find what makes them unique. I take this to mean helping our children discover and celebrate their gifts.

Not all gifts are necessarily natural aptitudes. There are many inspiring examples of people who have turned their weaknesses into strengths. Every Mormon primary child learns of Heber J. Grant, a prophet of our church. In his youth, "sissy" was said about his baseball throwing, "lightening struck an ink bottle" was said of his handwriting, and "I would like to be at least forty miles away while you do it" was said of his singing. Eventually he played on a championship baseball team, won a territorial award for his handwriting, and as an adult learned to sing solos.

I invite all of the "fellow bloggers" on my list to answer the following questions on your blogs(Auntie Lee, Ave, Mum, and others who comment but don't have a blog, answer in a comment please):

1. What is a talent you seem to have been born with that you have discovered, grown, and celebrated?

I have a natural ability to learn languages, especially the sounds of other languages. For a Spanish linguistics class in college I took an oral exam that tested my ability to speak Spanish sounds, or "sound native" in other words. The prof said, after I'd read my paragraph, that he could not tell I wasn't a native Spanish speaker.

I would like to do more with this. I am dying to learn French and some other languages.

2. What is the gift you think you don't have, that you most envy in others?

I am envious of people who have a natural, spontaneous, fun-loving personality. I have two friends like that. Everyone feels loved and at ease around them. They are the kind that have beautiful smiles, frequent laughter, and big hugs for everyone. They both also happen to be tall and slender, but I don't hold that against them as much as their happy-go-lucky personalities, darn them.

3. What is a talent that did not originally come easily to you, that nonetheless you've developed through practice and hard work?

I mentioned in a previous post that I am not great at social interaction. However, I feel that I have made some improvement in the past fifteen years of trying and trying. I've come to realize that it's silly for me to try to be bubbly or easy-going. It's just not who I am. But I can take risks. I can introduce myself to someone I don't know at church and ask questions that are interesting but not invasive. You might laugh, but that's a big deal for me! It's taken some doing.