For this mission, we were asked to look at 25 different personality traits and to identify 4 strengths and 1 weakness from the list. While going through this process, I realized that I was focusing on my weaknesses instead of my strengths. This made me acknowledge that it's important for an individual to appreciate themselves for who they are and what they bring to the world rather than what they need to work on. Even how this exercise was constructed with having you chose 4 strengths and 1 weakness proves that you are your own kind of perfect but of course always room for improvement. This exercise was a great mind opener for all kind of people. For those people that think greatly of themselves, this showed that no matter who you are, you have something to work on and to improve. Even if you were one of those people that thought they were worthless and couldn't do anything would still benefit from this because they were forced to chose more strengths than weaknesses to reassure them that they are here on earth for a reason. My strengths include love of learning, curiosity, kindness and hope and the one weakness I choose for myself is forgiveness/mercy. These are the reasons why I identify myself with these traits:
Love of Learning:
I have always loved to learn new things. Not only do I enjoy being taught, but I like taking things to the next level and building on the things I already know. I am a person that is always open to learning something new and appreciate what I am taught. I love challenging myself to learn new things and to teach myself. My curiosity adds to my love of learning. Without curiosity or need for adventure, there would be no love for learning.
Kindness:
Kindness is a strength that absolutely everyone should have. For some people, kindness is hard, they find it difficult to be friendly, to say nice things or they don't make an effort to be kind. In my perspective, kindness is on of the easiest things to do. You say a compliment instead of an insult, you stop yourself before saying something mean, or you wave to someone who you would usually ignore. It's always been something that I just do. People who are mean don’t think about how much it truly harms people, they don’t think of the consequences to their words. Even if the meanness is accidental or “a joke”, it still has a negative impact. I try to be nice to everyone no matter there backstory, appearance or their social standing. Kindness is something that everyone lacks in one way or the other and is something that everyone needs in their life.
Hope:
Whenever a situation arises where there is hesitation in succeeding, I am the one to look beyond the statistics/facts and ignore the pessimists and think purely about the positive side of the situation. Being optimistic sometimes means thinking unrealistically. Even if you are forced to think about the impossible being possible, it is still better than just sitting there and letting the facts tell you what is going to happen aside from letting you hope on what is going to happen. Some people think optimism is thinking happy thoughts all the time, but really, it's more like pretending that you are determining what will happen in situations in need of hope. Ihave always been known by my friends and family as an optimist. This is one of my traits I am most proud of because it is a hard thing to be able to do. Even myself, maybe one of the most optimistic person you’ve ever met, sometimes doubts my own thoughts and for a second and think ‘but what if’ and somehow, I never let those occasional doubts stop me from being who I am. Of course, there are some times where you let the truth over power hope and that's ok. During those times, it's because you lost hope maybe you are in a personally sad situation which takes all the power out of you. And that is ok. I see happiness in the least happy moments and am be able to spread my thoughts to others who need them. Even if it is in an everyday situation that I interfere and tell people to think happier, it still makes a difference, at least in my perspective. I see hope in the darkest of situations. When my friends are struggling with finding happiness, i help them to see the happy side of the scenario. Yes, pessimistic people are able to easily persuade people with “what ifs”, but even if it's really challenging sometimes, it really is the best to think purely about the bright side of things. There are people in my life that I encounter who are annoyed by the amount of optimism I give out and the amount of happiness I smile throughout the day. But that is because I see hope in my life and in the world around me. Its because I don’t let the haters and pessimists come into my life and destroy it. I stand tall with my optimistic thoughts and one day hope to spread it to people who are enduring bad times in their life. There is a lot of hope needed in the world and every optimist out there is contributing to what is needed. Make sure to not allow haters and pessimists ruin your optimistic and hopeful thoughts and please attempt to see hope in the hardest and darkest situations even if it seems impossible.
Curiosity:
There’s not a lot to say about curiosity. Curiosity is a lot of different things. Curiosity is what brings adventure. It’s what leads you to a discovery what you never would have found without being curious. Someone once said “replace fear of the unknown with curiosity”. That is exactly what curiosity is- wanted to discover the unknown. Without curiosity, people wouldn’t discover new things because they would never desire to find.
Forgiveness and Mercy:
Before we were asked to look through 25 different traits and find one that was our weakness, I never made the connection that forgiveness is my personal weakness. Now that I acknowledge this, I am much more aware about it. When interacting with a person, I often remind myself of the person's background with me. I don’t think past what they did wrong. If someone did something to me, I find it difficult to forgive them and to let them have a fresh start. I must admit that this is something I am not horrible at, but I do wish to be better at it because I strongly believe that everyone deserves a new beginning. I have no excuses for being this way, it’s who I am and what I am planning on improving about myself. For someone who has made many mistakes in the past, you would think that I would know what it’s like to lose someone because they’ve yet to forgive me. I should not let this persons’ past define how I treat them, and yet I do.
A little bit of extra fun!
Superhero uniform: My superhero dresses in a silver fitted romper with rainbow accents. My cape is mint and my boots are lavender. My leggings are salmon colour with white polka dots. Her outfit is very outgoing to match her personality.
Quote: “The idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that is wrong with the world” -Dr. Paul Farmer. I really enjoy this quote because the topic matters to me and it saddens me that every single word of this quote is true. This is one of society’s flaw in that we don’t treat each other equally. This is something I strongly believe we need to make great efforts to fix and to respect everyone no matter what. Two of my favourite quotes that I wrote are “Under the shadow of forgiveness is a bliss of new beginning” and “Bring hope that’s simply impossible”. These 2 different quotes relate to my strengths and weaknesses. The first one relates to my weakness of forgiveness. It states that we should all look beyond one's mistakes and flaws and allow for a new beginning. The second one relates to my strength of having hope. It states that you should try to have hope in the hardest of situations even if it seems completely unrealistic.
I hope this makes you think about yourself and all about your strengths and weaknesses.
