Gifts

Just finished reading the last book in the Twilight series. This post is not a review of the same - my friend has already written a great review (Check here) and I did not feel like re-inventing the wheel. In that book, when the child of the human and vampire is born, she comes with an inherent gift of being able to communicate by creating visuals in the mind of the other person. Though she can speak, she doesn't need to speak because of this gift. This post talks about such gifts.

Even the mother of the child, who becomes a vampire after child-birth, 'discovers' many gifts/talents that were dormant within her. The strange part is that she had that talent even while she was human; she could shield her thoughts from mind-readers unconsciously. Yet, when a total stranger calls her a 'shield', that is when her eyes are opened to her strength. She is then able to physically manifest a shield to protect her family and friends.

This made me realize that there are many talents I have that I've always taken for granted. It always used to make me wonder why I can do some things easily but others are totally clueless about doing those things. This book gave me an insight of how knowledge of such gifts unfolds in its own time. One of my gifts is my emotional intelligence. At the risk of sounding arrogant or a braggart, I've always been able to understand another's motives, what makes them tick, after spending some time with them. I'm able to predict their words and actions and can prepare myself with the right words or behavior in an argument/confrontation with them. Whereas, I've seen others, much older and experienced than me, struggling to understand their spouse,child or parent and be able to establish rapport with them. While it is crystal clear to me what is wrong in their relationship, they seem totally oblivious. Since this was in-born in me (not learned or acquired) I wasn't aware of it until I was well into my adulthood.

This gift had its disadvantages too. I always felt that if I can understand this person, be thoughtful and considerate of unspoken needs, why cannot he/she understand me too? Why do I have to put things in words for that person to grasp my feelings? Many a time, I've been told that I need to spell out things as others are not mind-readers. Whereas I've seldom needed things to be spelled out to me. This frustration and unfairness that I battled with could've been avoided had I been aware that what I had was a gift which others didn't have. They had to follow the tedious process of trial and error to understand me.

Everyone has such inherent gifts - some are obvious and others are less overt. Do you have any such gift?