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Comment by marble-drink | Hacker News Reader

Absolutely. There's this popular sentiment today that says anyone can do/be anything. It's certainly popular in tech, but I have limited knowledge of other areas. Talent is becoming a bad word.

But I'm convinced that one of the keys to happiness is to live a life that plays to your strengths. If you have a natural aptitude to problem solving etc then you could become a really good engineer, or you could become a mediocre violinist. Which is going to lead to a more fulfilling life?

People are born with natural talents. We should be encouraging people to do what they're good at, not telling them they can do whatever they want to.

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I think this comes from the fact that we have automated/formalized most of the meaningful work. If you spend 10% of the time solving problems and 90% playing petty office politics, it doesn't really matter how good of a problem-solver you are. Especially if most of the problem-solving part comes down to following clearly defined procedures.

The flip side is that the economic contribution of a single employee becomes vanishingly small, affecting the salaries, or rather what you can buy from them.

I agree with you that building your life on top of your natural strengths is the most fulfilling way of spending it (having done so myself), but I think these days it is extremely hard and is only possible if you manage to start your own business and grow it to the point where it can pay your bills.

What if most people are not good at what society currently appears to value?

I don't think most people are against doing what they are good at (or even, what they like), it's just that discoverability is poor and in a lot of cases the most important thing ends up being a certain brand of social or political skill, and not the other secondary skill you might posses. For people to play to their strengths, we need a society that can detect and nurture those strengths, and I don't think we have that right now.

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