There is a Jewish parable about a rabbi named Zusya:
Lying on his deathbed, Zusya was despondent and deeply distraught. His pupils, perplexed, asked him, “Zusya, what is the matter? You were almost as faithful as Abraham and almost as wise as Moses -- surely you will be judged favorably!”
Zusya responded to his pupils: “I do not fear that God will ask me, ‘Why weren’t you more like Abraham?’ or ‘Why weren’t you more like Moses?’ I fear that God will ask me, ‘Why weren’t you more like Zusya?’”
This parable raises the concern that beyond a moral standard that we are to live up to, there is also a question of whether or not we meet a standard that is unique to each of us: did we, in fact, become who we are? Did we ultimately amount to what we, as particular individuals, were intended and had most peculiar potential to be?
Certainly we should all strive to cultivate various virtues such as faith, wisdom, courage, temperance, generosity, etc. We all have the potential to cultivate these and other virtues, and indeed an obligation to. But if we also have different potential and obligations concerning who we are to be and what we are to do with our lives as individuals, then in addition to being moral, we have an existential obligation to be authentic, to be who we are as individuals.
So what is it then to be authentic, to be an individual? Is it just speaking our minds? Is the person who dreamed of being an artist but succumbed to a career in accounting living authentically just by virtue of speaking freely and frankly? Presumably not. There is a sense in which someone with great potential and passion for something is living a lie—or under an “assumed identity” of sorts—if they forgo that pursuit, opting instead for something that does not align with their particular talents, potential, and passions.
To overlook or forego talents, potential, and passions seems a surefire way of precluding oneself from becoming who one is (or who one is supposed to be). Indeed, all three of these things seem to be givens—that is, we do not choose talents, potential, or passions for ourselves. Rather, these things are discovered. To say that talents, potential, and passions are discovered implies that they existed somewhere in or about us all along—that they are inherent, lying inchoate, waiting to be discovered and cultivated. This is to say that when we discover talents, potential, and passions, it is not a matter—or even a possibility—of choosing to have this or that talent or to be passionate about this or that thing. One does not elect to have immense talent in drawing or math or wrestling, rather talent’s presence or absence is simply apparent given the right circumstances. One does not decide that the banjo is the instrument for them—oh, Heavens, no! Those individuals find themselves with an innate passion for the instrument. The individual innately drawn to the banjo cannot simply decide to be drawn to guitar instead, if he was not already innately drawn to it as well. Our innate talents, passions, and potential are discovered as given or made available to us—not as characteristics we chose to have.
He who has a passion for art, along with talent and potential, and who nonetheless abandons himself to accounting is surely not authentic—he is turning away from parts of who he is that were given to him. Now ultimately we will all have to forego certain passions and talents in pursuit of other passions and talents—that’s just part of life’s finitude. While foregoing certain passions and talents in pursuit of some other, more compelling passion or talent is hardly inauthentic, abandoning oneself to a pursuit for which one has no passion (and perhaps no exceptional talent, either) is most certainly an inauthentic rejection of given, important, individuating aspects of one’s identity: one’s peculiar gifts.
So what is each of us supposed to do? It’s less a matter of figuring and more a matter of finding and acknowledging. What were we gifted with? Are there things we are naturally inclined to do that others really appreciate? Are there things we can we do that most others cannot? What work or engagements bring us joy? What makes sense to us that others do not see, but ought to?
When talking of gifts and blessings, it is often said that “my cup runneth over”—perhaps the fullest meaning of this phrase is that the gifts we’ve been given fill up our cups, then runneth over onto the world. That is to say, when we really live into the gifts we’ve been given our cup no longer contains them—they’re not just in our cup anymore—and they run out onto the world, becoming not just gifts for us as individuals, but gifts given to the others through us.
To be who we are intended to be is to embrace and cultivate the many gifts that individuate us and thereby live into the potential that they afford us—that is, to become the individual that each of us has most peculiar potential to be, to become who we are. If we fail to become who we are—if we fail to be authentic in this way—we fail not only ourselves, but others. Our gifts are to be shared, indeed they are in a sense gifts that we are entrusted with and intended to bring to fruition and share with others. In this way, the purpose that we serve—the gifts we cultivate and share with others and the ensuing effects—is intertwined with the passions, talents, and other gifts we’ve been given.
When we embrace the gifts with which we were entrusted and they spill out onto the world, truly then has one’s cup runneth over.