Strengths

It’s Saturday and I’m lying on my bed reading the new syllabus created by Joel Williams. It’s the same syllabus I’ll be working with this semester. He’s picked an interesting reading selection for students including a web project called “This I Believe” on NPR.org. Browsing the selections online I click on a couple of topics that interest me. I read about how one woman’s father taught her to never give up in any situation no matter how hard or painful. At a moment she gave up on herself, her father never did. She is now successful in her recent endeavors. In another essay, I read about a father and son’s relationship growing deeper the day the young man drives off across the country to go to college to start anew, and the third, definitely not the last, essay I read was about a woman who pursued a career in literature because it does matter the way the arts can help us see ourselves in new ways.
You see, I’ve been away from academics for almost three years yet still held out for that full time faculty position at an accredited college despite the ever-rising stack of rejection letters I have received and the mental notes of all the times my resume and desire to teach has been ignored.

I have understood the value of writing and have shared my passion to teach to others for many years. I even call myself the Grammar Guardian. You should see my costume. I’m sure my students thought my standards were rather high for grammar because I would find every error. To ease their minds I would tell them that I had written a love letter at the end of each of their papers upon returning them. Whether they understood what I meant, I’m not sure. I have missed their ah-ha moments and triumphs as they improved.

This Monday I’ll be back in the classroom. The phone interview, only a couple of days ago, was the first in about five years. I had almost given up. Somehow the conversation was much less stressful, and I felt much less needy. I explained the type of service I have provided students through my tutoring and teaching as an adjunct professor. I explained the profound love I have to help a struggling student receive a passing grade on a paper. I have tutored my own students on my assignments before the due date if needed. Generous? I suppose. A better term may be service. I was offered the job the following day. I’ll move to a new city in two days to serve more students.

Before this fateful event, I found a website called AuthenticHappiness.org. I took a free quiz to find my character strengths. I wasn’t at all pleased at first when I received the results. My top two strengths are Love and Mercy. Mulling these over I realized that my techniques were completely in line with my strengths. I showed love and mercy in and outside the classroom. I helped students achieve their goals. It’s a wonderful feeling to know my strengths enhanced someone else’s strengths. Give the site’s questionnaire a try. You might be surprised at the results. I surely was, but also thrilled to use these as often as I can now and in my future.

Joy,
Cheryl

The Descriptive Self

What’s your response when someone whom you’ve just met asks you what you do? Do you tell him or her your occupation as if that’s who you are? Do you label yourself into a box with presumed connotations, false impressions, or negative or positive associations?

Ok. So we’ve been programmed to answer this question invariably to indicate a social status. There are lawyers, doctors, chemists, and the like who probably make a substantial income. But others who teach, perform, create, or keep books for a living are just as valuable even if our society may not place these in a desirable light for one reason or another. Take a look at the labels. If a person is a janitor, the connotation is negative. The word janitor is replaced with a euphemism, a more desirable name, such as building maintenance worker. The garbage truck driver is now a sanitation worker. Regardless, an occupation is just an occupation. It’s the society and culture that forces the label upon us. What our culture can’t do is take away how one feels about his or her work. A financial planner might feel she’s in a dead end job and cannot wait to find something different. A barista might feel incredibly satisfied with his work. It doesn’t matter what one does to provide the necessary things for survival.

Try something different the next time a new acquaintance greets you with the ‘hello’ small talk and asks that dreadful question. What do you do? Answer, I dream, I write, I play cards with my children, I enjoy plays, I skip rope, I camp in a tent, I sculpt, I run, I bike, I have fun taking classes, I enjoy my life . . .
Imagine, now, the look you’ll get.

Imagine, as well, that the new person would really like to get to know the real you, not the descriptive you.

Think about this . . . Your job or occupation does not make you who you are. Identity crises happen when one has been a piano player all his life, but is no longer able to perform due to arthritis. An athlete with broken bones from a devastating accident must find out who she really is is more painful than the cause of the debilitation. Holding onto that identifying position, or social status in life, can cause great pain if change occurs. And things do change in this world. Often.

You’ll recognize this guy:
Remembering the glory days is what he’ll be talking about. The high school game he won at the last second. Where is he 20 years later? Still trying to hold onto a description of himself that once made him feel he had accomplished something great.

Live in the moment of today. Find what you love to do and go do that. Don’t get caught up in telling others your occupation in order to fit in. You’ll eventually sell yourself short. With so many aspects to your personality, why stifle yourself or risk the possibility that someone will misread your potential and multifaceted capabilities and stamp a label on your being. There are no boundaries to what you can do, and no boundaries to who you have become. Set yourself apart from those who proclaim one small aspect of themselves. Be free. See the sky.

Joy,
Cheryl

Acceptance

A few years ago, I learned a valuable virtue from my dog.
Yes, I’ve heard of all the wonderful praises dogs receive from their owners, etc. We can learn patience from them simply because they’re patient with us. Dogs don’t criticize, nor do they judge us. Probably the best quality they have is the ability to love us just the way we are, despite how we see ourselves. Many jokes are shared across the Internet describing this very sentiment:
Don’t you wish you were as great as your dog thinks you are? – Honestly, you are probably pretty great, but you may not accept yourself for who you are. Self-help books aim to help us accept the way we look or behave so we can improve. They may also help to accept the reality of certain situations, especially those which are negative or undesirable. In the process of doing so we find a healthier outlook and hopefully happiness rather than trying to resist or change things.

The common definition for acceptance would be to receive that which has been given to us.

We can look at it as accepting a gift from another: a common event, yes. And very simple. But if poor vision, the loss of a loved one, giftedness, or riches prevail in your life, you must accept that reality, good or not good. And, of course, pleasant things are the easiest to accept.

To be truly accepting is to accept another’s personality traits as you would your own.

With all the different temperaments people possess, it’s often difficult to get along with those we find abrasive.

This is precisely where my metaphor comes in handy to help us realize people have their own bents and habits just like we do.

One day while playing catch with my dog, she stopped to do what dogs sometimes do. She had been running around off the leash somewhere in the acres of land in the back property. Usually she picked up on the scent of something dead and rolled in it, probably so she’d go undetected while she hunted unsuspecting prey. Other times she’d eat the dead, partially eaten animals left in the field by coyotes. At least three times that I can remember, she was skunked because she just couldn’t leave those fluffy waddling skunks alone. She also would run through the house with muddy paws if I wasn’t fast enough to catch her first.
This particular day, to my dismay, she began to cough and throw up some slimy, disgusting particles she obviously could not digest. The worst part is when she proceeds to lick it back up.
If I weren’t there to stop her, she would do just as she pleased like any other time I wasn’t present. Who am I to change her nature?

Now, while this is graphic to an extent, it’s important to understand my metaphor for what it is. I’m not saying people are this disgusting in their behaviors. Not at all. But the next time your spouse doesn’t put the seat down, forgets to put the toothpaste cap back on, or something else despite how often a request has been made, think of this:

I was so grossed out by my dog’s behavior, I caught myself telling her to stop doing what she does. Basically, I yelled at her for being a dog.
What? Yes. I did. Ha ha. Like that would stop her. She was a dog after all.

You see, I cannot stop her for being what she is as much as you can’t stop people for being who they are by nature. Acceptance is a virtue because it allows us to see people as they are and receive any oddities they possess as favorable and thus approve of those oddities. Just because others do things we would not do, doesn’t mean we need to change them. The only person you can change is you. Practice approving others. You may find a core trait that at first seemed odd, but in fact is the trait that makes that person unique.

As far as my pooch goes, now that she’s gone, among other awesome things I miss about her, I also miss the muddy paw prints she’d leave on the carpeting: a sign of life and vibrance.

Joy,
Cheryl