Just a thought… Talent is like electricity. We don’t understand electricity, we use it. [Maya Angelou]
You can watch a video version of this journal on my Facebook page, or here on YouTube.
Happy New Year AGAIN. I keep saying it well into the year and I don’t care. Soon it’ll be the Lunar New Year – Year of the Rabbit – so we can say it again then. Maybe as long as we keep saying it, we get fresh chances.
Like the new podcast my friend and fellow broad in broadcasting Lisa Brandt and I started up last Thursday called Gracefully and Frankly. Just a few days in, we’d already had more than 800 listens (thank you!). To put that in perspective, that’s in the top 5% worldwide – and if you go here, you’ll even find a video on how to listen to a podcast.
It’s okay if you don’t know – we all had to learn sometime. And this one, since it was our first, is a great time for you to listen to one for the first time too, right? Then maybe you’ll try Drift sleep stories, too…well, I can dream. In fact, so can you! LOL
Anyway, I bring this up because one of things Lisa and I will be talking about this Thursday really has me scratching my head. Lisa asked me to think about it – and I’m going to ask you to think about it too.
If you and five others were the last people on earth, what talents would you bring to the group?
Now, here’s the thing. I used to ask myself a similar question: if I was in Little House on the Prairie times or dropped on another planet, what skills, what talents, could I bring to the people there to save us, or even myself?
This is where it gets awkward. Because I can’t really do anything useful. I could show them how to use two broad blades of grass to make a whistling or tooting sound. That’ll get me killed. Or I could show them how to crochet, but then we’re going to have to get wool off a sheep or something. Or perhaps use those aforementioned grasses? I don’t know. Does that save my life? Hmmm.
My talents, if you will, are as follows (and are open to argument): talking, editing, putting up pithy memes. Doing tech 21st century stuff. Negotiating peace. Listening. Okay, those last two things are hopefully what might save me and whatever is left of the civilization I’ve been dropped into: the ability to try to get both sides to agree on something, or see their commonality, their humanity (if they’re humans).
Can I start a fire? No. Maybe I can stop a fight. And if you think about it, perhaps a fight – the big one with Putin and the red button – is what started this, so SOMEBODY had better start listening.
But still, I’m definitely not the one to go on Elon Musk’s last rocket to another planet. Pick Rob. He sews, can fix or wire anything and really does have a lot more talents than I do.
That’s why one day soon he’ll be in a vase. Oh, no, it’s not an urn – I promised I’d remind you about that new year’s gratitude jar. Mine’s a vase and I promise I won’t bore you with each week’s entry, but just to show I did, here it is: we launched Gracefully and Frankly and Lisa Brandt and I are grateful and in awe at the number of people who have listened, who have written and who will listen to episode two this Thursday!
And oh, if you haven’t listened to a podcast or don’t know how – just go to back to Facebook and I’ll have a link for you to a cute little video Lisa made that takes you through it step by step. I promise you’ll thank us – as I thank you – and I’ll be back here with you next Monday.