Horace Quote Analysis

Everyone is ascribed to their own unique talents. Most people do not often realize the potential that they hold and instead allow their potential to remain hidden from themselves. The main reason that some people do not elicit their talents is stated in Horace’s famous quote, “Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents which in prosperous circumstances would have lain dormant.” This quote states that a person who faces difficult obstacles will elicit their true potential that was previously hidden from themselves. Horace’s quote is a true and agreeable statement because everyone must face difficult challenges in order to realize their true potential. One famous psychologist named Kazimierz Darowski presented an experiment that proved Horace’s quote was true by observing the survivors after World War II in which the survivors stated that they were more grateful than before the war. There are other personal experiences that have encountered this meaning of the quote by facing difficult
challenges that eventually helped extract individual talents. This true statement is demonstrated in multifarious experiences and generalizes that one must face adversity in order to elicit one’s talent which would lead to prosperity. Kazimierz Darowski studied World War II survivors and how they’d coped with traumatic experiences in the war. Surprisingly, the painful wartime experiences that the survivors suffered through ironically caused them to become more grateful and appreciative towards their loved ones. According to Darowski’s observations, after the war, the survivors did not take people or things for granted and also caused them to feel “more confident, more sure of themselves, and unfazed by life’s trivialities and petty annoyances.” Darowski also stated that “many of them still suffered from the emotional scars the lashings of war had left on them; but some of them had managed to leverage those scars to transform themselves in positive and powerful ways.” These observations proved the statement by Horace to be correct by showing how the painful experiences can lead to eliciting one’s talents. The outcomes of the war caused survivors to realize their true potential/motives and create a prosperous environment. In my personal experience, I encountered a dilemma in which I had to decide what types of jobs would suit me best for college majors. Business was my number one choice, yet I felt unconfident with my decision. After taking numerous economic classes, I realized that economics was not my strongest subject which also made me realize that there were no other majors that I would be interested in. I looked for majors that would benefit me in the future financially because money determines survival in society. After a few months, I started to make school video projects which made me feel lighthearted and more confident because I realized that I had a special talent. I had the creativity for making videos. Although I did love making videos, I still wanted to major in something that would make me the most money. The adversity between choosing happiness or money elicited my realizations and I decided to combine the two things in which I would be benefitted my both. I would create a Video Production Company which would deal with both Business and Video Production. The adversity in choosing what I should major in college elicited my understanding and realization to pursue my true passion. If I had not created those school video projects, then my talent would have lain dormant. Horace’s statement, “Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents which in prosperous circumstances would have lain dormant”, is undeniably true.
Adversity comes across everyone’s lives in which some decide to overcome the obstacles and others decide to let it be a blockade from their talents. By facing difficult situations, one can realize a potential solution by using his/her talent that is elicited from the difficult situation. The potential/talents of individuals would not be recognized if individuals decide to not overcome the obstacles which would cause their potential/talents to be hidden from themselves. There are difficult experiences in which people go through that resulted in the eliciting of one’s talents such as the observations made by Darowski on the survivors of World War II or an individual’s personal experience. Whether a person already contains a unique talent or not, it is the eliciting of talents from adversity that would lead to a prosperous
lifestyle.