Whether or not they may realize it, everybody has a talent that makes them unique. I myself just recently discovered mine through the help of my brother named Jake. Growing up my brother had a passion for video games, and this passion ended up rubbing off on me while I was a little boy. As I grew older, my passion for video games grew with me and led me to play more and more video games. Before I realized it, my brother's passion for video games had led me to discover one of my primary core beliefs, which is making use of the talent that you are given.


When I was about six years old, my brother, who was around thirteen at the time, introduced me to something called a “video game.” Being the curious child I was I decided to give it a try as I have never seen or heard of them before. So I turned on the machine and then suddenly the words, read off by what sounded like a sports announcer, “HYDRO THUNDER” were on the screen and I was playing my very first video game. As you may expect, I did not perform very well; I went the wrong way, drove off of the track, and came in dead last every time among other things. However, I never would have guessed that this embarrassing first time experience at a video game would evolve into a core belief of mine.


Let us fast forward a little bit to when I was fourteen years old when my brother, who was twenty-one years old at the time, and I had grown up together on video games. We had played many games such as Halo, Warcraft 3, and Starcraft together, which caused the two of us to bond with each other. Around this time my brother had begun to realize how much I loved video games and offered to sign me up for iD-Tech Camp at the University of Texas campus in Austin. iD-Tech, in a nutshell, is a camp where kids as young as eight years old can go for one week to learn how video games are made, and even create their own game to take home with them at the end of camp. I had no idea what most of the classes were about, let alone the camp, so I decided to pick a class that sounded interesting at the time: 3D Character Design. The only problem was I ended up choosing one of the hardest classes available, but found the class very easy regardless. I even ended up “graduating” that week with an honorable recognition as one of the best kids they had ever seen at their camp.


The next year I ended up returning to iD-Tech and even went for two straight weeks instead of one and took two new classes: 3D Game Modding – Unreal Tournament 3, and 3D Game Design – Role Playing Games, the harder of the two. The camp changed dorm buildings to one that had slightly bigger dorm rooms, but I had gotten a suite that year which was two dorm rooms connected by a relatively large room with a couch, a few chairs, and a wonderful view. I had a lot more fun the second year because my roommates and I were all there for two weeks in a row. During the second week when I took the class on Role Playing Games was when I made my very first game ever. Granted this game looked nothing like what would see today, containing graphics so amazing that it looks realistic, but it would keep you busy for a good five hours before there was nothing left to play. I even went beyond what the camp expected of us and learned a little bit of programming in that course. That week was the point where I learned that my talent was something along the lines of the creation of video games, and even learned to make use of it, even though it may not be the most appealing talent out there either.


I now know that my main belief is that you should make use of the talent you are given, even if that talent may not be appealing to others. I never would have guessed that one of my core beliefs would have come from me simply having a passion for playing video games and never would have thought of making a career out of it until I went to the camp. I also never would have realized this belief of mine if it weren’t for my brother introducing me to video games and also introducing me to iD-Tech. I am very thankful that I had a brother like him because if I did not, I would not be the person I am today.


And the best part is, I’m going to the camp again next summer!