Now I’m thinking those mix-and-match high school yearbook epigrams were wiser than we thought. I recently read Now, Discover Your Strengths and look at my life and my personality differently.
Yes, it’s sort of a cheesy business management book, but it’s very encouraging and freeing. It simply says to concentrate on your strengths and not worry too much about fixing your weaknesses. We seem to go wrong when we dwell on those things, comparing ourselves to others, getting insecure and unhappy. Why not just let everyone admit what they aren’t and be satisfied with what they are?
My signature themes, by the way, are as follows:
Input
Learner
Intellection
Context
Harmony
This confirms that I am the Übergeek, which is sort of liberating. I can’t pretend I am some big social butterfly or motivational speaker or glittering demagogue. It was a strange feeling to read the descriptions and recognize myself. Apparently there are other people like me. Maybe it’s normal and possibly good to be the way I am.
As Elijah said to the Rabbi Jochanan, “Must not the Lord of all the earth do right?”
2 comments:
very nice post - and what a great picture to go with it! Why not just be satisfied with what we are? Because, I suppose, when we look around us we're attracted to the unfamiliar. And we find that playing roles brings positive attention - even though in the long run it's tiring, and feels false.
It seems that by encouragement we've come to mean encouragement to do more, not encouragement to accept one's limits. I found it very encouraging to hear what I shouldn't be wasting my time trying to be. We're told that this kind of talk is bad and discouraging. But it's not.
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