Spiritual Gifts

I think that as Christians we think of spiritual gifts as something that God has uniquely blessed us with as a gift to ourselves, but too often we think of our own unique spiritual gifts as ours. We almost become selfish about them and think that they will help out our walk with God. But the more I learn about it, the more I think that spiritual gifts are not for us at all. They are for others. All of the spiritual gifts listed in the bible are only fully functional when used in a community, and the benefit is always for others and not for the one with the gift.
The problem with this is that we want to keep our gifts to ourselves. We are scared of letting people see who we really are and we are content hiding behind a lesser version of who God really made us to be. The reason we do this is because we are afraid that if we lived our lives in a way that revealed who we really are, our truest self, that we would be rejected. We don't want to let others know who we truly are, because that would give them the ultimate ability to reject us completely. Like the man in the parable of the talents who was afraid of investing what his master had entrusted to him, we hide our true gifts, our true personalities.
By us not being ourselves, we are not merely hurting our own lives, we are also depriving others of the gifts that God has for them. True community exists when others are benefiting from what you have to offer, and you are benefiting from others. The gifts that God has given us are not our own, they are meant to be shown to others. And that will mean showing people our true selves, and whether they accept us or reject us is only a slight or a compliment to how God has made us. But only then are we really able to offer something.