I wonder why so many people are deluded into thinking they can sing? Forget about singing well, in my experience, most people can't sing. At all. Period. In fact, most people will never be able to earn a penny singing. And yet. And yet many people truly feel that they have talent. In fact, they have so much self-esteem that if anyone tells them that they don't sing well, then clearly the other person just doesn't appreciate their great gift.
Don't get me wrong, self-esteem is good. That is, self-esteem is good if it is based on overcoming difficult obstacles through hard work and thereby becoming excellent at what you do. For example, someone who has spent years honing their woodworking skills or needle point techniques or differentiating equations, and thereby becoming adept at these skills can take pride in doing their work well.
Of course, it's not only would be singers that are afflicted by this. One need only look at any college football team to find hundreds of people who think they have what it takes to be a professional. Or take a look at the Democratic Party presidential candidate hopefuls. Only one of them will win. Yet there they are, trying to get people to vote for them. But I digress.
On the other hand, someone who thinks they can be a professional singer, without spending any time learning how to do it well, may have a lot of self-esteem, but not be a good singer. Thus, I should not be surprised that tens of thousands of people will wait in line to be told they have no talent and should be doing something else instead of trying to be the next American Idol.
Perhaps we can blame it on some of our school systems that confuse self-esteem with mastery of a difficult subject. Where teachers somehow teach "self-esteem" for doing nothing worthy of self-esteem. Where rigorous testing is deleted and replaced with feel good group sessions where everyone bleats like sheep, while sitting on the floor, in a circle, trying to sing kumbaya.
Perhaps people don't understand, or are too lazy to care, that self-esteem should come as a result of mastering something difficult. That self-esteem should be based on reality, not delusions of grandeur. That in fact there are criteria to determine whether you can sing well and that if you don't meet those criteria you should not be surprised to be told you have no singing talent.
I have six words for people who don't have any talent, or have some ability but don't want to spend the time and effort to become good: Deal with it and move on.
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Aloha!
