Talent: The Eighth Deadly Sin

I was at work the other day and had a sudden moment of zen. My eyeballs stopped focusing and the work in front of me disappeared.

I knew it wasn't blindness, because moments of clarity are kind of the opposite of that.

Anyway, the thought I had was this:

To everyone else, our talents are excuses.

People are show-offs. We have to be. From the time we're kids, we want others to notice what we can do. And even though it's supposed to demonstrate strength and character, the motive is always a selfish one because it requires attention from another person to work.

But if the observer doesn't care, then it comes across as a cry for attention, unless you're really good, in which case it is passed off either as talent or luck and puts that observer in a jealous mood that he was not in before you showed up.

And if he does care, he's probably wondering how he can exploit you.

So, regardless of what you originally wanted to prove, a jealous person now cares more about the talent you have than who you are, and is plotting to exploit your gift to his own end and prove to another person that he can beat you at your own game before you even finished it.

Then my vision returned and I saw a sentence that needed a comma.