Am I a natural?

I'll admit it; I really struggled with this one. The concept of a natural can even be taken a few different ways. To me, I view a natural as someone who can excel at something with little to no work/practice/preparation.

There are some exceptions, most athletes are usually required to practice, which helps them get even better, but when you look at guys like LeBron James, Lionel Messi, or Michael Phelps. You can tell even from a young age what they were going to do in life. They were all exceptionally gifted, blessed with God-given talent and attributes that allowed them to thrive in their given field.

I think one of the key aspects is that concept of God-given talent. You've heard all the rags-to-riches stories about how people worked their tails off working at their craft over and over, and eventually rising up to become a star. All three of the above athletes, by the time they were 13 they were blowing their competition out of the water, they didn't need all that working to turn nothing into something.

So in the short version, being a natural comes down to having some God-given talent to go on and using work/practice to supplement that. Which then brings the question, am I a natural at something? Honestly, even in just the past few days I've had this argument multiple times, and every time I find myself on the same side, saying no.

Maybe it's because to me I see "being a natural" as a bit of an ego inflator, I feel it would make me sound conceited if I said I was. Trust me; I have about 20 pages of text messages arguing this point to death. People argue all the time that I'm just a natural at school that everything comes so easily to me. It really doesn't though. I work my butt off studying, doing homework, and surviving through much stress filled episodes. There's a lot of luck involved. Do I think that I was just born like this? Not a chance. I just do what I do and hope it all works out.

Some say that my lackadaisical, float through school lifestyle would constitute that of a "natural"- all play and no work. Me, I think it’s a combination of luck and hard-work. God-given ability? Not really, so I'm going to finish this kind of depressing blog post by casting my ballot saying no, I'm not a natural.