We just had a discussion with our kids yesterday about this, when I explained that the pat answer I tend to give them when they ask "can I..." before they've earned it, of "anything is possible if you try hard enough and believe in yourself" is actually flat wrong.
Not everyone is good at everything, or even can become good at anything. Not everyone is built for every type of job or career or vocation. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses, and we must all accept both of these aspects of ourselves.
I told them that I had decided some 15 years ago that I am intelligent and capable enough to go to Harvard, so therefore I should go, and that within hours of making that decision, I realized that it was the stupidest idea that had no basis in reality, so I never even applied.
The point I was trying to teach them was that what a person will become in 5 or 10 years is opaque to them now, and that time will reveal it, so that instead they should just focus on living now correctly, practicing discerning what they should and should not do, and focus entirely on that.
They might be a CEO or POTUS, or they might be a janitor of a broken down gas station. Every role is needed in life and someone is meant to fulfill every role. Greatness doesn't lie in what career you have, what college degree you have, how much you make, how many people know you, how many books you've written, how young you learned this or that skill.
EDIT: To clarify, I'm not saying that one should settle for a vocation that wastes their natural abilities. If I were to try providing for my family by being a janitor, I would be wasting the software talents that I cultivated into skills.
Not to come off as offering parenting advice, but how old are your kids? Not everyone can become Bill Gates or Usain Bolt, but for healthy individuals above a certain level of intelligence, passion and grit determine success more so than inherent characteristics. I wanted to be a lot of things growing up, and only through pursuing those dreams did I understand that I wasn't cut out for them, or didn't find them super interesting.
Not everyone is good at everything, or even can become good at anything. Not everyone is built for every type of job or career or vocation. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses, and we must all accept both of these aspects of ourselves.
I told them that I had decided some 15 years ago that I am intelligent and capable enough to go to Harvard, so therefore I should go, and that within hours of making that decision, I realized that it was the stupidest idea that had no basis in reality, so I never even applied.
The point I was trying to teach them was that what a person will become in 5 or 10 years is opaque to them now, and that time will reveal it, so that instead they should just focus on living now correctly, practicing discerning what they should and should not do, and focus entirely on that.
They might be a CEO or POTUS, or they might be a janitor of a broken down gas station. Every role is needed in life and someone is meant to fulfill every role. Greatness doesn't lie in what career you have, what college degree you have, how much you make, how many people know you, how many books you've written, how young you learned this or that skill.
EDIT: To clarify, I'm not saying that one should settle for a vocation that wastes their natural abilities. If I were to try providing for my family by being a janitor, I would be wasting the software talents that I cultivated into skills.