Strengths

So I wrote a few days ago about being real and named a few of my weaknesses.

Now I kind of want to talk about a few of my strengths. This is not meant to boast, but I do think I would be ungrateful to only illustrate my weaknesses and none of the strengths I've been blessed with/been helped to develop over time.

• Although I sometimes complain about it, it can come in very handy to be such a jack of all trades, master of none. I can learn new things very quickly and do them well enough to get by.
• I have gotten so much better since my early days (i.e. middle school) at communicating with people, knowing how to talk to people in the way they liked to be talked to, and talk to them about what they like to talk about. (That was a confusing sentence, sorry!)
• According to some of my best friends, my best quality is that I'm really nice and always there when they need me/they can depend on me.
• I like to think that I am very aware of my surroundings. Physically, yes. Socially, definitely. I feel like I can read people well; predict how they are feeling, what they are thinking about, when something is on their mind, what they like and dislike about themselves, etc.
• I'll sneak in a weakness here. Although sometimes I can tell these things, I don't always act as if I know these things. I'm not sure why. Still trying to figure that one out. So if you have ever thought of me as being dense, or "he just doesn't get it" or something like that, I probably did get it and for whatever reason acted as if I didn't... I don't know...
• I'm still learning a lot, but I feel like I have good advice to give to people. It says something in my patriarchal blessing about this. I'm always trying to refine my opinion about certain things, and I am always learning new things that change my point of view on certain topics.
• I am always careful about hearing both sides of a story before accepting something as truth.
• I'm usually very thorough. This is why I make for a pretty good editor. Although sometimes it means taking forever to do things that shouldn't take very long, and usually means being very indecisive. Whoops, another weakness, sorry!
• I try to be as caring as I can be, even on the little things. (Of course my roommate Tyler is probably the best at this). If I park poorly, I'll correct it (because I hate when people park so close to me I have to crawl in through my passenger door.) I realize when I'm being too loud, try to keep my music down when someone is reading, close doors very carefully to not wake people up. At the same time I don't feel like I'm a straight-up people pleaser who lets people walk over me.

Anyway, I'm done. Maybe some of you can attest to some of the strengths I've been blessed with, and maybe some of you can modify what I've written so it is more accurate.

Oh and P.S. I've been surprised in the past week how many people have told me they read my blog when I had no idea. For those people: thanks for telling me! And leave a comment every now and then!