The original name of my blog was ten minas. I was trying to be creating and memorable and I named it after the parable of the talents. I feel deeply connected to that parable, so much so that I am reminded this morning of it once again.
It has been an interesting adventure since I decided to become a different person some two years ago. Not different in terms of who I am at the core, but in what I want out of life, before I can’t get anything out of life anymore.
That parable means the world to me and is a perfect metaphor for who I was, who I am and who I strive to be.
A wealthy landowner goes away and entrusts his three servants with some coin. One gets ten, another five, and another one. The one with ten goes to the market and makes ten more, the one with five heads to the market and makes five more. The last one takes his mina and hides it in the ground.
When wealthy landowner returns, he wants to hear what they did with what they got. The first servant shows the twenty minas and gets twenty more, the second servant shows ten minas and gets ten more, and the last servant simply gives back the landowner his coin.
He is severely punished for it. His coin is taken away from him and given to the servant with twenty coins and that ungrateful servant is put to death. Ok, so maybe he wasn’t put to death, but today he dies. I’m spinning a little drama here, so please give me some literary license.
I have written about this before but it is worth repeating. When I was a little boy I did not see myself in none of the three servants. I didn’t feel I was good enough to do much, but I was also bright enough that wasting and disobeying life was not a very profitable thing to do. It had deep consequences. So I invented a fourth servant. A boy who got 1 talent, went to the market and brought with him another one. In this way I thought I could stay and live and be happy, but today I know that we were all given at least ten talents, and we should all make sure we share those talents with the world.
When I meet people they don’t believe they can do much. They are defined by the relationships they have, the work they do, and the mistakes they’ve committed. Their lives are buried in the dirt, and when their life ends, they simply intend to hand their life back to the creator.
This is very sad, not only for them, but for everyone that doesn’t have a chance to experience their wonderful talents.
I number myself among them. Not completely. I think I’ve found a wonderful way to live and I’m doing all that I can to be the best I can, but that temptation of wanting to do very little, wanting to do the bare minimum, and feeling like a fraud pecks at me from time to time.
It doesn’t stop me. It doesn’t stop me because I know that I can only help people by showing them another way. It has to come from inside of me. I have a deep desire to be successful as a writer and a photographer because I want everyone to know that I went to the market. I want everyone to go to the market too. I want this to be a wonderful world. I want everyone to experience a wonderful life.
We just need each other and our ten or twenty minas.
We must do it before the wealthy landowner returns.
Cover photo generously provided by photographer Udit Saptarshi.
https://unsplash.com/@udit_arun
