Find your "Birth-Gift"

Those born with a profound gift have one especially great challenge in life – and that is to realize that their gift is a privilege, not a right.

Have your found YOUR birth-gift..?

Pablo Picasso once said: “The meaning of life is to discover your gift - the purpose of life is to give it away!” What was he talking about? After all, would you not be “crazy” to give your gift away after finally finding it?

I believe there is much simple but profound truth in his statement - a philosophy that was likely founded on his own lifetime experience – realizing that a gift is just that – a “gift.”

It is not something we earn, but something we have had the privilege of being given through birthright (or “birthgift” as I always call it) even though we may improve that gift as we grow, or even only discover it later in life. Therefore, is it something we need to find and share with others with the realization that we have gift-given responsibility to value that gift and use it in the right way?

Those born with a profound gift have one especially great challenge in life – and that is to realize what I said above – that their gift is a privilege, not a right and not something they earned, but something given, to value and use wisely. Such profound gifts can affect the receivers between two extremes:

Realization that their gift is truly “given” and react with sincere humility and gratitude and overriding desire to share that gift for or with others – OR:

At the opposite extreme - overbearing selfish arrogance with a personal sense of power and control even believing that their gift is something they have personally attained.

This can be their greatest Achilles heel.

I hasten to add that this is not just true of those with “the” most amazing gifts but can also apply to anyone who has an obvious birthgift.

Further, those two extremes can also apply to anyone who has achieved what they may regard as any significant status in life – a great level of education or fame, wealth, power, or even all of these and more – achieving what most today mistakenly see as ultimate success. This may even have duly come to them through genuine hard work and development of skill, or through shrewd investment and lifelong perseverance.

However, this can still breed a similar reaction somewhere between the two extremes described above.

Perhaps among the most dangerously self-assured arrogance can often be found in those who may have inherited generational wealth, property, status and power, or those who have taken by force that which is not theirs. What they may fail to realize is that what they have achieved is only possible through the benefit of a gift given to all of us – the source of all true physical wealth.

We can also see almost invariably that wealth and power lead to corruption – where individuals (and corporations) simply lose sight of the fact (or never even consider) that all wealth is a gift – simply by the fact that everything we need or have to live is a “gift” from the earth itself – a finite resource from which mankind has taken not just what he needs, but what he wants – without earning it and without learning to give back. And one might ask, where does the earth’s finite resources even come from?

We live in a developed (or I could say “exploited”) world driven by many, many false values, and a false economic system drives those false values based on uncontrolled over-consumption of resource at an unstoppable rate (until they run out.)

This is now happening driven yet by perhaps the world’s greatest false value - uncontrolled access to “credit.”

Credit deceives nations, governments, corporations, communities, families and individuals into thinking that they can have anything they want – now – without having to actually “earn” the value of what they want first. This means that instead of the consumption of resources being naturally self-managed within the capacity of “earned income,” endless supply of credit (unearned income) means that those resources are used up faster than they can be sustainably managed.

This makes people slaves of those from whom they borrow, controlling their lives while robbing future generations of their natural resources and pristine, productive environment.

So what is the point of this bleak picture that I have painted thus far?

Simply this: Debt-slavery prevents so many of us from ever discovering, understanding or pursuing our own human potential, our uniqueness, or discovering and developing our own birth-gift.

Wait a minute…! What am I saying here? (“Our” OWN birth-gift!) – So what do I mean? My opening question in this article was: “Have you found YOUR birth-gift?

So am I saying that we all have a birth-gift?

Yes indeed – and possible more than one - and finding that gift can sometimes be difficult, even though it may be staring at you right in the mirror of your very being. Many people go through life and never find it, or by circumstances they may not be free to find it or be free to develop it even if they are aware of it.

Having a birth-gift does not mean it may be a profound “wow” factor gift, so far as others might see it. Most birth-gifts are not so. One thing is sure. YOU are an absolutely unique being - and in you is a unique spirit. This indeed makes you different (not better) than anyone on the planet. Surely it is not too difficult to then appreciate that even your uniqueness itself is a birth-gift and therefore it is pointless to compare yourself with, or long to have the same gift as others. Rather, appreciate their uniqueness for what it is too.

No, rather, you need to search deeper within; to understand your own uniqueness, it’s true source and what it is actually saying to you.

Appreciate that somewhere within your uniqueness there is a special “seed” of personal fulfilment and even a personal destiny. If you know what that birth-gift seed is already, then you have a good start. The question then is, do you value it, are you watering it and growing it, do you use it wisely and are you humbled by the fact this is given to you at birth?

Alternatively, are you in a situation where you long to find, understand and develop your birth-gift, but feel that circumstances are preventing you from doing so. If so, or if you don’t know what that gift is, or if you have never really thought that such a gift might exist in a personal context, then maybe it’s time to start thinking about it and where you might find the right pathway that could lead you to it.

At this point though, I want to discuss three gifts that we all have, even though they are unique to each of us.

Then, ask yourself if you recognize just how profound each of these really are, and then ask, do I appreciate them - I mean “really” appreciate them, value them and use them positively?

These three birth-gifts are your life, your time and your resources.

First, your life itself is precious, an amazing, even profound, birth-gift. How are you using your life, and does that use involve discovering and growing your own unique birth-gift seed within you?

Second, your time is an “hour glass” - the most precious you have. The greatest gift you can ever give anyone is your time, because, when you do, you can’t get it back. Share it as much as you are able with those who need it.

We can all look back on our life and realize just how much of our own precious time we have wasted. This can be discouraging, but don’t despair about it. Rather, consider that it is not wasted if you realize what you have learned from it and how that understanding can shape what time you have left, be it little or much, we don’t know.

Third, your resources (collectively) represent everything that you have at this point and everything that you have come to learn, understand, appreciate, value and accumulate in your life and if you have found your unique birth-gift, that “seed within,” you may have found the true meaning of your life. Having found that, then your time and your resources may well be leading you to fulfil your unique purpose in life – that is, to “share” your gift.

Sharing your gift is or should be the most rewarding experience of your life – giving of your unique life, time and resources to strengthen and sustain those around you who need that support. But be wise. You need to share your gift in a sustainable way. That is, doing so in a way that ensures you can continue to share. To draw a simple natural science analogy:

If a farmer gains great pleasure from freely sharing the crop from a few of his apple trees each year, then this is sustainable.

However, if he gives away all of his produce from all of his trees, he will not have the resources to support himself, or his family or to maintain the orchard.

So, there is a natural balance here. Many people are “perpetual givers” by nature, in fact, they give to their own hurt and that of their families. This can be an almost addictive human trait, just as is the opposite extreme situation where some are “perpetual takers.”

Both extremes are self-destructive. To understand this more clearly, read my article titled “givers and takers”

To conclude, how are you progressing with finding, understanding and using YOUR birth-gift?

Is finding it still a mystery to you, or can you see it but it seems out of reach right now? Does it seem to be across a wide, deep canyon because of circumstances you find yourself in, be it debt, disability, or some other situation where you may feel trapped and frustrated about not being able to discover and be “you?” Or are you aware of your birth-gift but nothing may be stopping you from growing it, except simple procrastination?

If so, remember, all birth-gifts are meant to be developed and used wisely, to provide a legacy (birth-gift) for those who follow. You can start by following the links I have given you in this article, and then hopefully, they will help you to progress.

Was Picasso right?

The meaning of life IS to find your gift and then give it away (by sharing it?)

When you come to understand the true depth of this and live it out, you will be on the pathway to finding true freedom beyond our mere metamorphotic coil.

It’s never too late..!

Thank you for considering this perspective on life.