Everyone is a Genius

“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”

--- Attributed to Albert Einstein

Talent is a funny concept. We say someone is talented if they can do something well, but the fact is, everyone has some kind of talent. The iconic 80s movie, “The Breakfast Club” about a group of high schoolers from different social groups gathered together for Saturday morning detention, has a scene where they are all discussing particular talents they have, besides the typical labels of “brain” “athlete” and “popular.” It’s a key scene that is meant to show that everyone can do something unexpected or out of line with how they are perceived.

 

The problem, in the movie and life, is that there are general standards and benchmarks for education, jobs, and just about everything else and many times they aren’t necessarily on point. There is always some rubric, some set of criteria that has to be met to assess proficiency. While it’s true that all of us have specific skills, there can be a disconnect on what we are good at and that on which we are judged.

Let’s start with education. Naturally, we have to educate our children in several areas of study. While it used to be the “Three Rs” we have, thankfully, moved away from such a narrow focus. Not mention that two of the three don’t even begin with an R, so it’s a good thing we’ve updated the standards. I may not be a genius, but I can read and write. Arithmetic is another matter. 

Just recently I had to buy a disposable party tablecloth to cover a ping pong table that was going to hold snacks and hot dishes. A ping pong table is 9 feet by 5 feet. Table cloths come in sizes measured in inches. There I stood, in the dollar store, because nothing but the best will do for me, trying to figure out how many inches were in 9 feet. My times' tables were never a strong suit. There’s some trick you can do when you get to the nines table, it involves your fingers and adding them up to get an answer, but judging by the looks other customers were giving me, I had either just flipped off the cashier or thrown up a gang signal.

It’s almost as if my brain was whizzing along and just slammed right up against the front of my head, coming to a dead stop, flummoxed completely by simple math. On the same day though, I had come up with a written proposal on how to showcase a retail analytics software package and a plan to incorporate assisted selling demos in stores, to a cosmetic company looking to change up their brand image. So, while in my math class I might be the fish that can’t climb a tree, in other areas I’m putting words together that can maybe, in a small way, impact a financial bottom line.

I am not special in this way. We all have a mixture of talent and shortcomings. I went to college with someone who is now likely one of the top five people, nationally as well as internationally, in a very complex field. However, when studying poetry during my junior year? Not so much. I spent more than a few hours explaining Keats, Yeats and Blake, the symbolism used in their work, the meter of the words, the allegory and other elements and how their life experiences and the current events of their time were reflected in the imagery of the poems. At one point, he looked at me and said, “Ya, you’re just making that up. It’s a poem about some flowers he liked, that’s it.” He was, of course, horribly wrong, but it’s OK, he had other talents, as we all do.

While there have to be basic standards in education, and everyone, even if they just barely make it over the finish line with a passing grade, has to take math, we should be paying more attention to individual gifts and talents. What can you do that maybe someone else cannot? I’m in awe of people who understand the mechanics of anything. I had to seek tech support from the fine people at Green’s Hardware when I didn’t know how to reload my heavy-duty stapler. Changing a tire? Nope, it’s been explained and demonstrated to me several times, still can’t do it, nor can I jumpstart a car. However, if you need someone who can make a bed you can bounce a quarter off, complete with hospital corners, I’m your girl. Waitressing taught me how to get five plates of food and a tray of drinks out of a kitchen and to the correct table, and even to the correct diner, but I can’t cook anything more complicated than burgers, mac and cheese, and salad. We can all be a genius, even if it’s just in one small area. If there’s something you do well, do it! If you know someone who struggles with a certain task, help them out. Maybe less of us will feel stupid, and that’s always a win.