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Today's Paper | May 03, 2024

Published 15 Dec, 2012 04:09am

Viewpoint: Luck or talent?

Talent is considered an innate, natural ability. You’re born with it or without it, and supposedly you can neither gain it nor lose it.

Talent isn’t learned or developed; it’s discovered by the lucky owner or by others who are observant. However, one needs both natural ability and hard work to become successful. To be successful, there is another important factor one needs, which is ‘luck’.

Natural ability is a prerequisite for any work. With God’s Grace, every person is gifted with at least one natural talent. Now that could be anything — some people can sing well, while some people are good at art, while some are great dancers, etc.

Now it depends on every person to recognise that talent in him or her. However, if a person tries to do something without a natural talent or ability, he may complete the work, but he will not be very successful at it.

Hard work is another factor without which success is impossible. A person may be talented and may be lucky, but if he doesn’t work hard to put his talent to good use, no one will ever recognise it.

As some wise person said, “The harder I work, the luckier I get.” For example, if a person has a natural talent for the arts, like painting, but, if the person never tries to refine and practice his skills, then he can never become a successful painter, whom the world will praise or recognise.

Lastly, luck plays the final part. Some people do not believe in luck, they consider it as a superstition. However, luck is as necessary as hard work and ability to become successful.

For instance a person with business sense puts all his hard work in a project to make it successful, but he will never succeed if he is unlucky. If the project is cancelled at the last moment, then all his hard work would be in vain. On the other hand, if a person is lucky then that luck may bring him another opportunity.

But I disagree with the belief that success is solely due to luck. For a person to be successful, he needs all the three — hard work, natural intelligence and luck.

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