Disabling "Ability"...

Somehow I am beginning to question the validity of the word “ability”. I know…I am not sure if I am making sense to myself but I mean it.

What is ability?

It is often described as another term for defining proven capacity to do something i.e. the action itself can be repeated at will by the actor and not just by mere stroke of chance! Coz’ for that we have another term right? Flash in the pan!

Ok…so what happens to those who do not have this so-called gift of ability? Does that make them somehow inferior; at least with respect to the action in question? When do you stop trying? When do you give up trying to come up with that proof of ability? Or if that individual is someone else…when do you write the poor guy off saying, “…he/she simply doesn’t have it”?

I read somewhere about this b-school that had an assignment asking students to visit the neighborhood slum, pick 10 kids at random between the ages 12-16 and come up with an assessment of their ABILITY to make a decent living in 10 years from now. One of the guys turned in his report saying that not more than half would be alive / not-in-prison considering the trend in the area as well the opportunities available. The rest would be managing somehow either picking garbage or pushing broom somewhere.

On the 10th year reunion, the same professor asked the students to validate those submissions. Most ignored the idea but our man decided to go ahead and do it just for kicks. He couldn’t believe how wrong he was. All except 2 were in white collar jobs, the other 2 were construction workers but more out of choice than anything else. But what he couldn’t digest was the fact that one of them was actually part of the organizing committee for the re-union. One of the guy’s he wrote off 10 yrs back was to graduate from the same b-school next year.

Shocked out of his wits, he made enquiries and found that the following year of his graduation, a retired teacher moved in that slum who took night classes for these god-forsaken kids. More than anything else, the people in the neighborhood said she believed in them. She gave them the faith to define their own future rather than be defined by it.

So while the meaning of the word ability might still be close to proven capacity, what is questionable surely is the finality of it. It is not an everlasting state neither is the absence of it ground enough to write an individual off completely and for good.

Some times all it takes to change mediocrity into excellence…into ability…is the belief to be able to do so and it is also possible that the belief happens to be somebody else’s and not your own...