Thoughts about the relevance of knowing our own limits

Sometimes we see people, especially in the entertainment industry doing music or working as actors or movie directors, and when consuming their content we realize it is not as good as we expected, and we can even notice a lot of mistakes if the content we are consuming is a movie for example. Mistakes regarding the way the actor reacts to what is happening in the screen. In other words, the movie is bad, but that doesn’t stop the producers from trying to market this content as if it were of good quality.

These could happen because there are always going to be people that believe they can do anything (nothing wrong with that), by falling in love with their work (which is not bad at all), but by not objectively comparing themselves with the work of others, or at least failing to understand that they are not bringing anything new (this in case they don’t want to compare themselves with the work of others).

This might happen with the tendency in our society, and especially in families that respond by saying "excellent job!" to anything that someone does, so as not to hurt their feelings, when in fact they are doing harm by not giving the person the opportunity to realize that whatever it is he did, might not be as good after all.

And this all really comes down to the fact that some individuals are simply more talented than others in several ways. That is the reason why we have different professions, like photographers, doctors, architects, developers, painters. And realizing in which skills we are good at and in which ones not so good at, is very important.

Some people are born with a natural talent, and are very good at certain things (as happened with historic people or like Picasso or Beethoven). And others are very good at developing skills with which they may not have been born, but for which they are willing to learn quickly and effectively.

Almost everyone agrees that not all of us possess the physical capacity of professional athletes, even if we practice every day, which I think is evident with the large number of people who practice sports, and the few who manage to do it on a professional level.

Although we are willing to admit the fact there are limits to our physical virtues, there is also a believe that there are no limits to our mental virtues, and although I would like that to be the case, the reality is a bit different.

Each one of us is affected by genetic factors that limit the things we can do with our minds, just as we are limited by the degree of malleability of the connections in our brains to be able to adapt to anything.

It is important to recognize that the number of neurons in our brains is not infinite, so the amount of connections we can do is not infinite as well, and that, by logical deduction implies a limit in our individual minds.

But if we ask ourselves if our mind can be improved the answer will be a resounding yes, we all do it constantly, otherwise nobody would stop having the intelligence and knowledge of a little kid, but the important thing is to recognize that we are not all wired in the same way, which implies there are people better than others in the developing of certain skills, and it also implies that eventually, no matter how hard we try, there are limits.

And what I want to express is the fact that just as many have innate talent for certain things, and others are good at developing talent in some areas, the reality of life is that not everyone has talent for everything they like. or want to do.

Or in other words, it is very important that we objectively review ourselves and figure out if we are doing something that can be considered as good. One way to find out is by comparing our work with that of others, and seeing if our work truly approaches a minimum quality standard. Another way is asking people we trust about what they, and letting those people know that we want "the hard truth" and not a pat on the back to tell us that we are on the right track.

However, I think the first thing we have to do, is to try to really pursue our dreams, and try to do the things we like above all else. And only after we do that attempt, is that we must then analyze ourselves and decide if it is time to change course.

If we think about it, perhaps one of the best decisions we can make in our lives is to change course and do something different that fills us with pride and pleasure knowing that we do it well.

Therefore, we should try to do, above all things, things that make us happy, but at the same time perhaps we could improve our quality of life, and even discover other things that make us happier if we realize that we are better at doing something different from what we are doing nowadays.