I have the privilege of working with and being friends with
some wonderfully wise people. I spend my
lunches chatting with a teacher whom I really admire and appreciate. We share our lives, discuss interesting books
that we’ve read, air our frustrations, and generally just try to help bear each
other’s burdens. I find myself paying
careful attention to people I trust and watching how they handle situations. I want to glean as much wisdom from them as I
can.
My teacher-friend said something really interesting a few
months ago. A book she was reading
pointed out that a person’s strengths are also rooted in a person’s
weaknesses. Think of it like a rope in a
game of tug-of-war. Your strengths pull
the rope in one direction, and the weaknesses pull in the other. The more I thought about this, the more I
realized how true it really is…and I feel silly that I hadn’t thought of it
myself.
Take a second to think about one of your primary
strengths. What benefits are there to
your strength? How does it enhance your
life? One of my strengths is that I am
pretty easy-going. Not much gets me
upset. This has proven to be an asset in
many ways. When my students do something
frustrating, I am able to handle it without showing signs of frustrations. When tempers flare, I can often find ways to
cool things down. I am really content
under most circumstances.
Okay, now think about how that strength also has a
flip-side. In what ways does your
strength get in your way? How might it
rear its ugly head in a negative sense?
My easy-going nature can really frustrate my husband. He’s pretty tenacious, so he doesn’t always
understand my “be calm” attitude. I can
be complacent and dare-I-say stagnant. I
don’t take risks because I am happy and therefore don’t always push myself for
better.
It has been interesting to look at my own behavior in light
of this two-sides-to-the-coin point of view.
While I hate that I’m not more competitive, I love that I am very
accepting of people and their differences.
My husband’s get-it-done attitude is not only admirable, but sexy, and I
wish that I could be more aggressive in certain ways. But I
love that I always aim to treat people as kindly and gently as possible.
I guess what I’m getting at is that we can wish we were
different or yearn to be someone else, but who we are, both good and bad, is
rather tangled up. I could strip myself
of my “be chill” attitude, but I don’t think I’d like the negative side of that
behavior. I think I need to start
appreciating who God created me to be and capitalize on those things I am proud
of. I’m not saying we can’t work hard to
cull out the things in our personalities or behavior that we don’t like…There
are plenty of things I am working hard to improve about myself. It is really healthy to nurture our strengths
and work on improving our weaknesses.
But it’s not healthy to walk through life full of regrets and if-only’s.
So, take stock of the things about you that you are proud
of. Celebrate what makes you YOU! Work on the things that need improving, by
all means, but spend lots of time simply enjoying the person you are and the
way you enhance the lives of others. The
more we focus on the positives, the more effective we can be in our lives.
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