Everyone is different from everyone else. Some people find it easy to do certain things, while other people have to work hard to accomplish a particular task, and others can’t do it at all. It just depends. I perform high level work, in a challenging occupation, that most people cannot do, while some people who think they can perform my job are actually performing it at a sub par level. Here are a few examples: (1) I can select the best possible people for a jury, while excluding those who would not be helpful to my client, with a high accuracy rate (measured, of course, by the outcome of the trial); (2) I can perform complex statistical analyses on data sets to derive science based conclusions about a topic; (3) I can find persuasive arguments about almost anything that often change people’s minds about something; (4) I can recall lyrics to almost every song by The Beatles, then use these lyrics to converse with someone (whether they realize it or not); and (5) I can listen, without interrupting, to people’s almost endless sad stories without making them feel worse, offering unwanted advice, providing my professional psychological opinion when asked. I’m sure there are other things I can do that other people cannot, however, the point of this post is to call attention to the fact that almost everyone has unique strengths and weaknesses, such that they can learn to maximize their strengths while minimizing their weaknesses. As we go through life, it is important to remember, and be happy that, everyone is different and has unique contributions to offer in most situations. As my late mother-in-law, Carole, used to say, “I’m glad we’re not all alike”!
I remember my mother quoting an elderly neighbor, who became a good friend of hers, saying “Mrs. Beach says, isn’t it good we are not all alike, life would be so boring.” Everyone has strengths and weaknesses and it is the combination of peoples’ strengths that move society forward, if not as a whole, in any group of 2 or more people. Learning to engage each others’ strengths is critical for human interaction at work, play or wherever. Recognizing that some people are “better” in some way than oneself may be about a particular “thing”; a task of any sort is difficult for some people. On the continuum of skills and abilities, there always seems to be someone who is better than others on some scale. The scale is often hard to compare, except in terms of athletes or performers who are at the peak of their skill. Even then, there is always someone coming along to beat them at their game. Keeping these things in mind when observing someone struggling with a task or skill that one excels at is important to getting them to help you on things which they may be better suited to accomplish than you.
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