I always believed that there was nothing I couldn't do......but now at the age of 60....& even before that I realized that is not exactly true.

When I was in college, I started off getting my AA in music...being a flute player, I really enjoyed performing.....when I transferred over to the 4 year college & got involved in the music department & all the juries involved in performance....& I got a really wonderful flute teacher & I practiced 8 hours a day....I still didn't have the TALENT that it really took to be the performer I had thought would be the direction my degree would take me in.

I really didn't relate to kids very well, so being a music teacher was not an option either.....so I had to figure out an other option. I changed from music to Accounting Information Systems with computer science as a minor. I struggled to get through the 1 year of calculus that my degree required.....I just couldn't grasp the concepts other than knowing that it had something to do with calculating the area under a curved line. I managed to squeek by & got the C that I needed to get through that course. I ended up graduating with a 3.25 in my Accounting & computer science degree....but the inability to be able to do the calculus ended up limiting my career in the aerospace engineering field I was in for 15 years. I did well with the date link & communications area, but when the only position that was available was in programming ballistics.....there was no way I could do it which ended up ending my career. I could do the work in the department I ended up in...but I hated it & the stress of hating the position was the end of my career.

There are certain things that we are born with the ability to be successful with....& there are other things that end up being a severe limitation no matter how bad we want to be successful....& those don't have anything to do with mental illness or disabilities...they just have to do with our God given abilities or not & sometimes we don't realize that those limitations exist in the path we are on until they come up & end up the limiting factor.

My lack of music performance ability was early on enough that I could change the path I was going....but in my career...it was down the career so far & the aerospace industry was dying where I was living....there were no other options at that time & going back to college to get another degree at the age of 45 wasn't a possibility at the time.

I have found other talents that I never believed I had...such as drawing & painting....I can do all kinds of crafts that my imagination can come up with.....I always got irritated at my mother who couldn't do anything without a pattern when I could just look at something & figure out how to make it. I am guessing that my mother's insecurities & lack of self-confidence was what limited her creativity.....but I grew up totally surrounded by insecure parents & have no idea how I ended up so different from them. My mother jokingly commented that she believed they changed babies in the hospital because I was so different from my parents.

I had to work harder than most to get the good grades I got....it's not like it came so easy for me....but determination was what I had growing up....determination to NOT BE LIKE my parents. It was that determination that initially made me think that I could do anything I set my mind to....but I did learn through the years that my mind did have some limitations at what it was capable of understanding.

I could have never been a MD no matter how much determination I would have had....there were just some things I couldn't grasp in school & it wasn't just because I wasn't determined to do those things or be in that career. Growing up I always thought how wonderful it would be to be able to think quick enough to answer questions immediately without having to think so much about the answer.....which I thought would definitely make being a lawyer difficult.....but over the years & with a lot of practice, I have become better at thinking quickly & understanding things at a much deeper level than I did growing up.

I believe that the level of thinking that we grow up around can have an effect on us initially....I have seen people who grew up having wonderful family discussions about books & about different issues at their Sunday dinners...my parents didn't know how to have an intellectual discussion about anything......I didn't realize that was missing out of my life.....but looking back & seeing the difference between people who experienced that kind of life growing up & those that didn't....I can see the difference....but it doesn't stop us from developing the ability through the years if we are truly capable of thinking in that way......I enjoy wonderful discussions & I have been able to read so much more & retain so much more after getting out of my horrible marriage that I can see where the freedom my mind now has has opened it up to being a lot more capable of going into places I only wished for in the past.......go figure, the first thing I went to when I moved away from my H was to the book club at the library I never even read books before then because I was so sick of reading the technical manuals for work, I didn't want to read anything else when I got home from work & always fighting with my H about issues never seemed to give my brain time to focus on anything fun like reading.

We definitely can develop certain aspects of our abilities through the years.....but even now no matter how much practice I would put into music...there is definitely a talent limitation that exists.

Now that I have bored everyone with my theories on such things after 60 years of living.......