Talents vs Strengths

I took a long time to read this book Authentic Happiness and I am not done yet.  I also have two more books on recognizing and using my strengths.  I spent a lot of time healing.  My wounds were hidden even from myself but the symptoms showed up in my behavior again and again.  I needed professional help to get me started on the path to healthy.  Fortunately, I was blessed with two excellent counselors that worked at teaching me to be an independent, healthy adult.  The hardest thing for me was to recognize how poorly I was treated as a child.  I acted like a second class citizen because I was treated as a child as a second class person.  Strangers were treated better.  I no longer have a desire to understand why.  What is important to me now is where do I go from here?  One of the powerful things most teenagers learn is their strengths.  Unfortunately for me, my parents did not value my strengths.  If I was asked, I figured I had one talent, I could fix computers.  I didn't do this until I was in my family of choice.  Repairing this damage took recognizing that my view of myself does not need to mirror my abusers.  I needed a new perspective of myself.  I always had talents and strengths I just didn't recognize what they were.  Getting a job taking care of computers started me recognizing that I could do something well.  My computer job was an anchor for me as I explored my inner world and healed.  Now, I am ready to explore further.  I was intrigued how the author of Authentic Happiness distinguished between what is a talent and what is a strength.

This is kind of a summary of what I understand from my reading:

Strengths are based in moral behavior where as talents are non-moral.  A simple example is wisdom is based in moral behavior but perfect pitch can be used in a beautiful song or a raunchy one.

Talents come naturally from the gene pool.  Strengths can be built by any one that is determined to develop them.  I understood this from my experience in photography.  When I decided to major in photography, I talked with one of the professors.  He told me they could teach me everything except when to push the button.  That part was the talent.  Strengths I am learning.  I recognize the strengths my counselors took time and effort in teaching me to build.  I had to do the work but I needed an example and an explanation on how to get started.

Talents can be modified and either improved techniques or neglected and lost but the basic ability comes as part of the package of coming to Earth.  Strengths are the essence of what we can learn from Earth experience.  Some strengths may come easier than others but the bottom line is I can work on learning any of them.  


I like this paragraph from the book:

"Building strengths and virtues and using them in daily life are very much a matter of making choices.  Building strength and virtue is not learning, training, and conditioning, but about discovery, creation, and ownership."