Nature vs. Nurture

The Extent to Which We Were Born This Way

In any subject or expertise, whether mental, physical, or a combination, you don't get to choose the extent to which that given subject comes naturally to you. Nature, meaning our genetics and family history, is accountable for our baseline ability to understand something or perform some action. Nurture encompasses the actions of those who raised us along with our individual efforts to improve our understanding of a subject or ability to perform an action.A pessimistic perspective on this subject leads people to ascribe nature to all favorable traits that require a great amount of effort, and ascribing nurture to any trait that is unfavorable that may have been caused by a lack of personal diligence. For instance, when watching an Olympic athlete perform, it's very easy to sit on the couch while eating junk food and say, "They were just born good at that sport." While it is difficult to argue against the fact that nature has certainly helped some athletes (Michael Phelps has an unnaturally long torso, which allows for a superior ability to swim quickly), this is not always the case. Alternatively, it's also quite easy to look at a morbidly obese individual and think that nothing but nurture was the cause: more clearly, their lack of personal diligence in maintaining a healthy diet and regularly exercising. In both of these examples, it is rarely possible to determine the balance that nature and nurture played in their outcomes: achieving a gold medal at the Olympics or being a regular at the golden arches. While nothing stops you from speculating on the balance of nature and nurture in others' lives, know that only they know where the balance truly lies, along with an understanding of the extent to which their individual decisions have affected their life outcomes.As I've aged in my early adulthood, I've started to give nurture more credit. The first time you try something new, you are unlikely to be very good at it. If you are good at it, maybe you got lucky or maybe nature had something to do with it, in which case you would be wise to continue pursuing whatever that is. If you aren't good at it, you can improve through practice, education, and diligence. Through awareness of your nature, you are able to understand it more deeply and build upon it, or start fresh and build upon new values that you've created for yourself.I am thankful to have had an idyllic middle-class upbringing through which I learned to highly value family, hard work, entrepreneurship, and education. Over the past several years, I've established a fifth value that I am working on while writing this: creativity and following your creative passions. This can encompass creative passions of many kinds: traditional art, sculpture, music, dance, and many other forms of art. When reflecting on this fifth value of creativity, at first glance, I'm quick to say that creativity is not in my nature nor in my family history. After revisiting this thought, I've found that my Mom is certainly creative through her career as a hairstylist and as somewhat of an empath, and my Dad frequently exercised creativity through countless home improvement projects and solving problems through innovative solutions when working on his various classic cars or his commercial construction business. I'm grateful for the baseline creativity of my nature I've inherited and am working on actively nurturing my creativity to better myself and others moving forward.