Another peril of workshopping

I was thinking about a story I'm working on, and it reminded me of a previous story I wrote and one of the comments I got back several times. I had a character with an odd telepathic or empathic power (I was never sure) and I added a two or three paragraph hint as to how this happened. Why? Because I could just hear the voices of my workshop saying "How did he get these powers? Where did it come from?" Nobody liked my explanation, and nobody really wanted to know. They were happy to let it exist as is. I cut it from later drafts.
The story I should be working on right now (as I type this out) begs a similar question. Should I explain the origin of some wierd ability or gift of my main character? I don't think I will. I think explaining how the gift arrived is better left a mystery. I don't know if this means that as a writer I'm not pulling my weight, or if ti means that the origin of the ability just doesn't matter. (Naturally, that inspires a thought I'll have to explore later.) I suppose it doesn't really matter most of the time. All this really boils down to is a point I've made earlier: Don't write for your workshop. Most of the time.