Destiny?

I'm always interested in how exceptional talent gets discovered.  I often ponder the question:  can a person have a gift and not know it?  What if a potential violin prodigy grows up never having played a violin?  Will she go through life unaware of her talent?  Or will the inner drive be so powerful that she'll somehow find a way to express it?  Or, will destiny ensure that she's given the opportunity to play one?  What if Jimi Hendrix had been raised in a remote part of the world with no guitars?  Or if McCartney had never met Lennon?  Would they have still discovered their songwriting talent?

I ponder this question with Olympic ice dance gold medalists Meryl Davis and Charlie White, who met at ages 8 & 9 at their neighborhood rink.  They both knew immediately, even at that young age, that they were meant to be skating partners.  They've trained and competed together for 17 years.  It's an amazing story.

Meryl started skating at age 5 because she lived beside a lake and wanted to be able to skate on it in the winter.  What if she'd grown up next to a desert instead?  Would she have ever discovered her talent for skating?  And Charlie's parents gave him skating lessons so he could skate with his friends.  What if his friends had been into bowling?  Or what if his parents hadn't had the money to pay for lessons, or didn't live near an ice rink?  Would he still have found his way onto a pair of skates?

Certainly, much of their success goes to their dedication to the sport -- long hours of practice and major sacrifice.  But their exceptional talent was discovered, in the right place at the right time with the right opportunities.  That's the part I ponder.

How much of our lives are governed by destiny, how much by circumstance, and how much by choice?  Will an uber-gifted person somehow discover his gift, regardless of his means or circumstances?  Or are there people walking around out there -- perhaps even you or me -- with a gold-medal talent that they aren't aware of?  What do you think?