The Best is the Worst and vice-versa
Sunday, October 02, 2005
What are you best at? What are you the worst at?
This stems from an ongoing discussion that Jay and I have had for a couple years, but it always boils down to this simple concept:
Your personality characteristic that is your greatest strength is most often also your greatest weakness.
Think about it. What is YOUR strength? Does it somehow flip and become the fault that haunts you the most? Well, maybe not most, but does it substantially haunt you? Let’s take some examples.
1. Tendency to analyze circumstances, personal development, scientific enquiry, sociological trends,...in short, the tendency to anaylze everything. This type of thinking is very useful in many circumstances and is often rewarded in academic situations where clear, linear and organized thinking is valued. It is also very good for personal development, as it often leads to the detection of issues to be dealt with. However, this may not be ideal when dealing with intangibles such as emotions and human motivation, or when must utilize non-linear thinking to problem solve, or even in human relations where analysis does not often produce the desired result fast enough to satisfy the given situation (i.e. “i took too long thinking about it and now the opportunity is gone.")
2. Carefully planning ahead by projecting the consequences of the current situation onto the distant future. This great when it comes to retirement, buying a house, thinking about putting your kids through college (thinking about this all of course when you yourself are still in high school), etc. The weakness in this may be that such a person will worry himself into the ground before even having graduated college because he is certain that, because of a big zit on his nose, he won’t get the right woman, leave grad school and go off on a self-finding adventure, incure debt, finally find the right woman, marry her, miss a mortgage payment due to rising interest rates on his debt and thus be unable to afford college tuition for their child. Ulcer ensues.
3. Militant Perfectionism. (And this one is the catalyst of writing this post.) This kind of self-induced pressure results in great accomplishments in the estimation of those around the person, and they applaud her work and efforts. Usually, the products of the perfectionist’s labor are solid and as well thought out as possible. The flip side is that the perfectionist is rarely happy with the end result herself. Nothing meets up to the perfectionist’s standards which leave him feeling a bit deflated, having not met his own expectations. The result is a general underlying tone of disatisfaction.
So far this has not been very uplifting. BUT what if we take this and flip it on its head? What if your greatest weakness can also be your greatest strength?
What if your laziness results in you being a very chill and laidback person?
What if your bluntness allows people to feel that they can speak what’s on their mind?
What if...well, i gotta admit, this is kind of a stretch. Hmmmm...Well, it was a good thought. Maybe sometimes your faults just end up being the example to everyone of what not to do and what happens to you if you do it. :S The following poster comes to mind.
isn’t that what they say about relationships? the very quality that attracts you to someone is the same quality that WILL annoy you.
so… then, wouldn’t it be best if you dated someone who had no stand-out qualities? then you’d NEVER get annoyed =) hahahaha.... but then, you wouldn’t be excited about them either, huh? i wonder if that would really work…
Posted by kimi =) on 10/03 at 11:11 AMHow ‘bout #4: keen social insight that allows her to scrutinize and exploit her friends’ traits as blog fodder?
or #5: hypersensitivity - that [no one we would know] pathetically tries to pass off as wit.
Btw, laziness DOES may one more laid-back.
Posted by on 10/07 at 08:22 PM