Strength Training

I grew up in the 1970s when self-improvement books flourished and pop-psyche was all the rage. I remember reading passages from I'm Okay, You're Okay when I was in elementary school (perplexed by the space given to pictures in this otherwise 'adult' book), as well as Virginia Satir's People Making, among others. No wonder I thought the answers to all human mysteries could be found in books.

At home my parents tried to convey a pop-psyche understanding to their children, assuming, I suppose, that such knowledge would help us lead better lives. My father told us not to send 'witch messages' (i.e., not to insult or demean). We were not to be in parent mode (bossy) or child mode (needy) - nevermind that we were children and had legitimate needs. Adult mode was always preferable. It occurs to me now that a re-reading of the pop-psyche books from our family library of the time would probably explain a lot forensically about my childhood.

One of the major assertions of such books is that people can change for the better through conscious effort. From an early age I learned that if there was something I didn't like about myself or something I thought I was doing wrong, I could change course. I could be someone else: just recognize an undesirable tendency, read a book, and eliminate it.

I learned to approach human weaknesses (my own, especially) in whack-a-mole fashion: a negative tendancy here (whack it!), an unpleasant inclination there (whack it!) My favorite sit-com character, Barney Fife, spoke my favorite television wisdom of all time: "Nip it, nip it, nip it! Nip it in the bud!" That's the un-romantic advice I always give to newlyweds when they pass a book around for such counsel at wedding showers. I also suggest this approach to parents learning to wrangle toddlers. React to negative behavior early before it drives you crazy later on. I still think this is a wise method, though, in restrospect, it doesn't promote the human virtue of patience, which I am often lacking.

But last week I read something that has me thinking of a new approach. Rather than identifying, isolating, and eliminating my weaknesses, one by one, maybe I should focus on my strengths, making them bigger, stronger, more noticeable. Because they are strengths, I have always let them stand on their own and fend for themselves while I've battled my weaknesses. I've neglected them in much the same way a parent deprives a well-behaved child of attention in an attempt to correct a poorly behaved sibling. I've been repairing potholes instead of paving new highways.

I've always thought of myself as an optimist, but what have I been optimizing? From this point forward, I will seek to optimize my strengths.