For as long as I can remember, life's been a little confusing. It's easy enough to set goals for oneself, but how can one know which of his (or her) goals are even remotely attainable? Furthermore, how should one go about pursuing these goals? Personally, I can't help but think it'd be a lot simpler if, whenever faced with a troublesome decision, I could just go and visit the Oracle out of The Matrix; she'd tell me exactly what I needed to hear, and I could get on with my life.
And therein lies the problem. Without an Oracle to guide us, we're all stuck having to make our own life decisions without any sort of expert consultation (barring of course the guidance provided by the elderly, who've done it all before but possess disconcerting bias towards hard candy and shuffleboard). The only conceivable way for that path to end well is for one to take steps to learn about oneself by identifying the strengths, weaknesses, aspirations, skills, likes, and dislikes that combine to form that individual. Only through knowing oneself can one make the intelligent, informed decisions that will, with any luck, lead to one's achieving his (or her) life goals. For this reason, we would be remiss not to take a few minutes every once in a while to think about our own strengths and weaknesses, lest we become encumbered by our ignorance. I’ll go first.
Let’s start with the weaknesses, just to get things rolling. If forced to name my single weakest area, I’d probably have to say “judgment”. I can be pretty impulsive, which has proven itself problematic in the past; self-control’s always been kind of an issue with me (I’m told I once punched a kid in the face in kindergarten for continuing to sing the Kit-Kat song after I’d asked him to stop. I have no memory of this happening, although I do remember being punished for it by being made to miss recess and write the ABC’s over and over again on that inordinately wide-ruled paper they have you use when you’re learning to write. I never really saw the point of that as a punishment—I think the action of making me write the ABC’s really took the focus away from the bad thing I’d done and then placed it on literacy skills which I’d already acquired, seeming to me to defeat the purpose of that punishment. I’ve not since punched anyone for singing the Kit-Kat song, though, so I guess it could have been an effective one. Either that or they’ve just stopped airing those commercials—we’ll never really know.), and over the course of my childhood and (ha) maturation I’ve consistently worked on my ability to restrain my first thoughts of word and action just long enough to consider the question: will this lead to problems later on? Then I usually do it anyway (as a cursory glance at this blog will prove), but the point is I’ve made progress.
I’m honestly quite puzzled as to what my greatest strength is, if only because I can’t think of anything particularly outstanding about me or my abilities. That’s not modesty—I’m sure I’ll do something outstanding eventually, it’s just that I’m seventeen and haven’t done all that much life yet. One thing I do have is the ability to roll with it—whatever “it” may be, I find that with a little perspective there’s not much worth worrying about, so best to enjoy life while you can. I think that outlook is surprisingly rare, which makes it all the more valuable to me.
It can often be difficult to really be objective when talking or writing about oneself. The person one wants to believe on is can get confused with the person one is in reality. Personally, my main problem is that the stigma associated with speaking about one’s good qualities made it all the more uncomfortable for me to be writing about my favorite quality. I’m a big subscriber to the “actions speak louder” philosophy, so it’s a little weird having to just say something relatively abstract without any really concrete evidence.
Hopefully, though, I’ve learned something about myself in the process, and next time I’m faced with a tough decision, I’ll be able to tell me exactly what I needed to hear.
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