It’s slim pickins on TV at the moment, with the summer in full swing and all the good shows on hiatus. (I know, I know, based on my previous posts I’m supposed to be demonstrating total self control by giving up the dreaded tube. You can call me a back-slider and I’ll concede).
With my technologically advanced bunny-ear antenna, all I seem to be able to get these days is reality TV and game shows. The best of this bad lot has definitely been “America’s Got Talent”, the talent show which gives people the chance to show off in front of Sharon Osborne, Piers Morgan and (goodness-only-know-why) David Hasselhoff. As they move through the rounds of selection they get closer to a $1 million dollar prize and of course more publicity than they could ever imagine.
It is truly amazing how many talented singers, dancers, jugglers, magicians and comedians there are out there. That alone makes it a show worth watching. But the real entertainment is the people who are completely talent-less, but get up there on stage in front of three celebrity judges and a few million viewers and totally embarrass themselves. The judges frequently ask each performer before they begin “Do you think you have a 1 million dollar talent?” “Oh yes!!!” they all say. And I really think they all believe it. They perform, the judges tell them they’re terrible and ask them to leave the stage…. they get angry and start yelling at the judges……it’s all good stuff.
America certainly does have talent. But what America has even more of is confidence, and the two aren’t necessarily connected. In fact, from the looks of the show, most people have an excess of one and a complete absence of the other. But, they’re very entertaining as they prove this to the world. The judges job, it seems, is to find that rare person who has not only confidence, but some kind of ability to base it on.
Conversely, few of us probably feel like we have much talent in the singing/dancing/acting category. David Hasselhoff would certainly tell us to get off the stage. But most of us have “gifts” that can still be quite impressive. They’re all different, and that’s the beauty of it. The trick seems to be identifying them and having the confidence to use them. Like the talent show, we’ve probably all come across people who speak very confidently about things they know very little about. But there are more of us out there, I think, who have very valuable talents that aren’t being used, purely due to lack of confidence.
I’m wondering if we can learn something from those brave but slightly delusional souls who, even if they’re a little lacking in the talent department, at least have the confidence to step out onto the stage.
Philomena
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