One of the stories I’ve told speaking is how the Parable of the Talents changed my attitude when I was a custodian. For those who don’t know that particular parable from the Book of Matthew, I’ll share a very quick version. A master leaves and entrusts his talents to his workers. One talent was a significant amount of money back then (but there’s a bigger and more obvious metaphor going on here or course.) One servant receives five talents, one receives two and the final servant receives one. The first two servants handled their talents well and doubled them. But the third was afraid of losing the master’s money and buried it. When the master came back, he was grateful for the two servants who had doing well but was gnashing of teeth-angry at the servant who buried his talent. He called him, “wicket, lazy and worthless” — pretty angry stuff for the New Testement — but definitely should open all of our eyes. The Master was so mad that he stripped the talent from the afraid servant and handed it to the one who had had 10.
Back then, I realized I was the servant who was afraid. For about six months, I threw a horrible pity party. Let’s just say that I was like a fart in an elevator: No one wanted to be around me but couldn’t escape me. Heck I couldn’t escape me. I wasn’t drawing — I had buried my talent. When I started drawing again, things changed rapidly in my favor and I soon had a job at a local newspaper. That’s why I am here talking to you today.
But 31 years later, I realize that it is a lesson that I need to remember as much now as I did then. A few takes.
- Fear is the Devil. When I am afraid, I tend to stop using the gifts I’ve been given and withdraw from life. I can tell you from experience, this is the WRONG THING TO DO! You have to attack at that moment. If something triggers you, you have to pull yourself out of that waterfall and respond to it, not react. I have proof that when you use your gifts, new doors open. I’m currently having to deal with some upsetting stuff. My instinct is to “bury my talent” and just deal with it. But instead, what I should be doing is throwing my energy into the work and making things happen. It’s time for a Rocky montage!
- When you use your talents, you receive other talents. If you use the oblivious metaphor that talent means, well talent, then you can say that using your talent can lead to new ones. Drawing was my “only” talent. But because of that talent, I have discovered new ones. And when I use the new ones, I discover other ones. I became the cartoonist in Jackson. I ended up doing TV and radio interviews. Those led to a radio show. That led to another radio show. That led to a TV show. But you have to do the next step:
- Handle your talents well: I am darn lucky in that I had a very obvious talent. I even won “Most talented” in high school. But sometimes our talents aren’t as obvious. The first step is realizing what talents you have. Take a person inventory. Then take what you are given and manage your life as best as you can. This is where I fall down sometimes. But personal responsibility is the way we can handle what gifts we have been given in life. Those gifts can be as basic as our health, our marriages, our homes, our cars — many of things we take for granted. I know I am guilty of this. Like Luke Skywalker, I always looked to the horizon.
Look, I could go on about this. But the bottom line is: Your life is a gift. Fear will steal that gift from you. And if you’re in a bad place, you have to fight against every instinct to bury those gifts. It is hard — that I know. Change is difficult. But there is a definite road map for life and that is living it, not burying it.
That’ll happen when we’re dead and gone.