The Cook and the Painter.
It was one of these smulchy TV cooking shows with exotic recipes against splendid vista of an exotic country. Our master chef was chatting to a painter who did spectacular landscapes.
Towards the end, when the meal had sumptuously been prepared and probably devoured by the film crew, there was an intriguing little exchange.
The Chef said ‘I wish I was a painter like you’ and the painter replied ‘I wish I was a chef like you’. It was a tender moment to conclude the programme and touching in its own way but it did remind me of a little trap that is very easy to fall into. I know this trap well because I have often fallen into it myself and the trap is this.
That we become so bedazzled and besotted by someone else's talents that we forget and are blind to our own gifts. This happens in all sorts of ways, with all sorts of people in all walks of life. Sometimes it happens on the sporting field, sometimes in the thoughtfulness of another and sometimes in the physical attractiveness of another.
We can easily spiral so far downward that we are oblivious to everything except the fact that we don’t measure up to our own self-imposed, unreachable goals.
The trick I suspect is to admire the beauty in another and say ‘Now isn’t that wonderful’! Maybe it can inspire you, maybe it can teach you. But then we move on to celebrate our own attributes and gifts and we all have them. It matters not if you are a whizz-bang shoe polisher, a fantastic edge trimmer, or an adroit wordsmith. Every gift is infinitely precious and something to be rejoiced in. The world is chockers of amazingly gifted people and you are one of them.