No brains, no beauty, no talent – no money

This is not the first time it has occurred to me that I might be completely doomed. There was a time when I believed I possessed brains, beauty and talent, but over the years I came to realize that no one on the planet agreed with my assessment of myself. Still, I refused to believe I was worth as little as every one else seemed to believe I was worth; and I made it my life’s goal to prove the world wrong in their assumption that I was a nobody going nowhere.

Once upon a time I was determined that I was going to become a success in life even though no one expected me to amount to anything. I was going to make a name for myself one way or another.

I can’t pinpoint exactly when I started to doubt myself; but at some point my belief in myself began to dwindle. I had already stopped caring about beauty so that was no big issue. You can only bank of your beauty for a short period of time anyway. If I was ever beautiful enough to make money off my looks that opportunity passed more than a decade ago. As for brains, I realized a long time ago that unless you have the paper to prove you know something, no one gives a damn what you think you know; and even then, average smarts help you secure an average life. I was never going to make millions as a wall street executive. I didn’t possess that capable a brain. A brain with my capacity would never take me to the top and I knew it.

The one thing I did always believe I possessed and would be able to use to make a name for myself was talent; and my goal in life from the age of 18 was to become a successful writer; but here again I’ve had a problem where other people’s impressions of my talent have not exactly matched my own.

Now I am faced with a dilemma.  I don’t  have beauty to cash in on;  and I don’t have brains to cash in on. If I also don’t have talent to cash in on, then I have nothing; and if I have nothing to cash in on then I am certainly doomed. Do I give up now and accept defeat; admit failure? Or do I keep trying somehow to make something come out out of nothing?

Image: Rainy Day by lanuiop via Flickr