I'm old and grey...

Over the weekend I was involved in a conversation regarding natural talent. We had started talking about Brian K. Vaughn's book Pride of Baghdad and that lead to talking about instincts and that lead to professional sports and that lead to the Bulls current hot streak and that lead the conversation to a guy who plays for the Bulls whom one of us sort of knew or at least we had met him once in Okoboji over the 4th and then had met him again in Lawrence because we had a mutual friend. At this point the conversation hit a slight lull, as it sometimes does when pro sports are brought up because the majority of pro athletes are in their 20's like myself and they're also multi-millionaires which I definately am not. In fact I'm the opposite. 26 is a weird age because I'm young enough to justify working for pennies in order to train myself (new newspaper internship starts January 2nd) for the career I want to work until I'm old and grey, yet I'm old enough to have friends buying a new Mercedes every year. Well, maybe not every year but you get the point.

I think a lot of what goes into being a pro athlete is luck. Not luck in the sense that they're lucky to have the opportunity to make lots of cash because I truly believe that athletes, the ones with staying power, obviously have to bust their ass each day to keep up to par with everyone else in their field. These people aren't just playing games. (Get it? Games? Sports?) I think the luck comes into play because they're natural talents happen to also be what they want to spend the rest of their life doing. Pretty lucky if you ask me, lucky and fantastic. If someone is good at tennis and they like tennis, it's a no brainer that he/she should be a tennis player. If someone is good at baseball but would rather be a chef, that's where it gets tough. What makes the road even longer is when you see someone your own age without student loans and they're able to pay their parking tickets on time so that the city doesn't send a letter home to your parents because your Lumina is still in your dad's name and that prompts your dad to reconsider your having a car in Chicago, hypothetically. It's easy to be proud of your friends, but envy is hard to mask when you eat Ramen every night.

Anyway, all of this led me to think about my natural gifts because writing sure as hell isn't one of them, hence all the attempts at practice. I kept my eyes open this weekend and I think I found something, let me set up the scene for you. It's late in the day and you're at a small clothing store, or a barber shop, or a coffee house or even a bank and they're just about to close. You're the last person in the place and you're the last customer to leave before they lock the second door. The exit has a double door and they have already locked the door on the right to deter people from coming in and their needing to tell them, "Sorry we're closed. We open at ten tomorrow." I walk toward the double doors trying to hurry as to not further hold up the people working because I've been in their shoes when all you want is for that last person to leave so you can close and go home and turn on the TV take off your socks and rub your feet on the carpet and BOOM. I run into whichever of the double doors has been locked. If the right one is locked I'll have picked the left, if the left is locked I'll go right. It's a natural talent which pisses me off to no end because the place is always empty so when I smack into the door the sound reverberates throughout the space for all of the employees to here. "Oh, that door's locked. The one on the left is open." No shit, coffee batista or bank teller or whoever is working behind the counter?

That's my natural talent. It isn't exactly what I want to spend my whole life doing professionally, but I'm not saying I wouldn't capitalize on it if I could. After all, it might be nice to drive a Mercedes to the store for Ramen.