Natural gift skill you wish you had, that you have already

I've always envied people who are musically inclined. To me reading music, thinking musically, is like a foreign language to me. An exceptionally gifted musician, singer leaves a wonderful footprint behind long after they are gone.

On the other side, I feel immensely blessed to naturally want to write and do art. It's been a part of me ever since I was a young teen. Not fully developed but that's ok. I do what I can, when I want to.

(And no I wouldn't be putting cycling in this same bag. Not for myself. I enjoy cycling but it doesn't express the true essence of "me". Not really.)

Smooth and articulate speaking. I can get stuck in the middle of a sentence, looking for the right word, the way to explain or describe something. I read a lot, I'm pretty intelligent, but my spoken vocabulary doesn't reflect that. It's frustrating.

Oh, I would love to be able to sing, but I can't carry a tune in a bucket.
But, I can make or fix pretty much anything I set my mind to.

IBrakeforPastry - that is something that happens to me too. The word I need just disappears from my brain. It will have been there, just waiting it's turn, then when I need it, it's gone - then I'm left saying things like, you know, that round thing you make soup in.

I wish I had more athletic ability. When I was a child I was the clumsiest child. I could never catch a ball. I maybe hit a softball twice in my life. Bowling results in gutter balls. I can't make a basket if throwing a basket ball. I was always the last to finish a running race. Second to last last (after an extremely fat girl) picked for sports teams in school. My entire family was this way. One of my sibs is autistic and another has Asperger's Syndrome. Lack of coordination are markers for these conditions. I was tested many years ago and the test found that I had problems with fine and gross motor functioning.

I gave up trying the physical stuff as all I got was failure.

Then in my late 50s I picked up biking. I suck but I love to ride and despite my clumsiness I don't seem to have a balance problem. I do have to be careful about attention though and can easily make mistakes like pulling out in front of traffic that I just don't seem to notice.

This has been on my mind because I am going to post a thread about how to improve my biking skills.

I really have little to complain about though because I had plenty of other skills that served me well through the years. :)

Well, I would like some mechanical ability and like Goldfinch, some fine motor skills and better spatial relations. These are all connected, and they pretty much stopped me from doing a lot of things. I also cannot catch or hit a ball, and bowling, forget it. I don't care about that now, though, rather how these lack of skills have affected my riding. I've come a long way, but really I don't think there will be much more improvement.
I can read and write well, speak pretty well, and I'm super organized. I have absolutely no musical or artistic talent, though, and it still amazes me one of my kids is a fairly accomplished musician.

I wish I could catch and aim! Whether I'm tossing a breakfast bar at my mum, practicing archery, or playing a video game, I can't seem to aim at all! I've been trying to work on that, though, and can hit a bulls' eye 2-4/10 times now... It may have something to do with my horrid depth perception, but maybe one day I'll get a real hang on it.

Other than that and running (bad knees and ankles, oh gosh), I'm going to allow myself to feel proud that I'm fairly well ridiculously skilled in just about everything else I've ever tried!

I don't have mechanical skills and I really know this, when I watch dearie solve malfunction, non-operational piece of equipment or gizmo and the natural problem-solving process he goes through when there's no manual around.

I also know my geo-spatial skill is crappy. Heck if I get off at a subway stop that I haven't used before, it takes me awhile to figure out my location to new intersections, etc. Whereas he seems to naturally follow along all sorts of routes after some map-reading...and this is before days of GPS portable aids (and I'm not talking about just a compass. :)).

However I know that I have refined technical skill since I've had to implement for several employers, computerization across multiple dept. functions and train others in a detailed way, deal with software problems, design software reports, etc. This skill most definitely was acquired in my late 20's onward and I had no idea I had this skill in me. Related to technical and abit of art skills is sewing.. excellent tailoring is technical but creating a piece of clothing with the right colour, texture and cut on a person, is also abit of artistic....you have to be able to envision when looking at a bolt of fabric. I used to get so inspired going to fabric stores. It is like going into an art supply store with all the different paints, etc.

I know that my artistic side in sewing is helpful because my mother is superior in tailoring and good at basic pattern drafting (she is self taught. I'm hopeless at pattern drafting), but she really chooses such boring colours and textures for others. Therefore she is more technically bent...and actually this shows up when she does mathematical calculations in her head while my father patiently watches her and waits for her to spit out the answer. :) My father is naturally more artistic --likes Chinese opera, Chinese calligraphy, etc.

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Originally Posted by goldfinch

I wish I had more athletic ability. When I was a child I was the clumsiest child. I could never catch a ball. I maybe hit a softball twice in my life. Bowling results in gutter balls. I can't make a basket if throwing a basket ball. I was always the last to finish a running race. Second to last last (after an extremely fat girl) picked for sports teams in school. My entire family was this way. One of my sibs is autistic and another has Asperger's Syndrome. Lack of coordination are markers for these conditions. I was tested many years ago and the test found that I had problems with fine and gross motor functioning.

I gave up trying the physical stuff as all I got was failure.

Then in my late 50s I picked up biking. I suck but I love to ride and despite my clumsiness I don't seem to have a balance problem. I do have to be careful about attention though and can easily make mistakes like pulling out in front of traffic that I just don't seem to notice.

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It's interesting that you bring this up...I am not particularly graceful or coordinated and have no less than 3 confirmed blood relatives on the spectrum (my son, my nephew, and my brother). My son does quite well on the bike, in spite of his Asperger's. I think it helps that he also has ADHD and when he's on minimal meds he has far less fear/caution. It's hesitation that gets people in trouble when they ride off-road (I have a broken wrist to show for it).

My desired skill...the ability to read music. I have a VERY good ear for picking up melodies and harmonies and recalling them for years afterwards and a decent voice, but the inability to sight-read was a deal-breaker when I auditioned for a college concert choir.

I would most love to be able to sing and dance beautifully, I think.

My skills are more in the writing and technical realms. I am also very organized. These skills served me well in my career as a software engineer, but I would love to have more performance-related skills.

Better social skills would be nice as well!

I'm totally tone def, can't draw worth anything, and as much as I love sports, I'm not very good at it. Unless you count archery as a sport as I am good with a bow and arrows. Otherwise I'm much better with macanical and electronic things and can fairly easily read diagrams and blueprints for cars or houses.

Oh, I'd love to sing like Judy Collins and dance like...well, like a person who knew the difference between left and right at least. Drawing would be fun too.
I might wish to play the piano, but then all the fun I'm having learning right now would go away, wouldn't it?

It was a fine stroke of luck that I landed in a profession and a position that uses many of my strengths: communication, language, play and recognizing progress in very tiny increments. I still get to sing and dance and make art and music but I don't have to demonstrate any particular competence at those things.


edit: Brewer says that while I'm at it I might as well wish to sing like Julie Andrews and dance like Cyd Charisse.

I am pretty artistic, except I can't draw myself out of a box. I am a pretty good writer and have a good singing voice. I do wish I could read music better, but that would take more work than I am willing to put in right now.

I wish I had some musical, artistic and writing ability. I can write for my field, but I used to be much more adept at expressing myself with words. Now that I think about it, it happened in college when I didn't have to write for anyone outside my field and didn't have time to read for pleasure.

My sister got all of those. She also got the athletic ability.

I am very good at languages, and can speak my own and one other fluently, and get by pretty well with others given just a bit of study. Music also comes relatively easily but I don't do it very often any more.

I'm shy and not very outgoing and wish I was more comfortable in social situations. Funny, when I'm speaking a language other than my own, I'm much more comfortable being social.

I would like to have an aptitude for languages. I do alright in my native tongue, but I have always really, really struggled with learning new ones and I wish I was better at it. I suppose if I were to immerse myself, I might do OK eventually but I've not had the opportunity in my life to date.

I can't spell either but with the advent of computers and spell check, it's not such a bid deal anymore so I don't mind the deficiency.

But really, what I've always wanted was the ability to sing. I can read music, I can play instruments, I can hear music with a critical ear...I just can't carry a tune to save my life. I've always wanted to. Singing competitions enthrall me because it's something I just cannot do at all.