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What is harder for you to accept?

Generalist

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What is harder for you to accept, a gift/talent/aptitude or a weakness/vice/shortcoming? Thanks to anyone who replies.
 

Neal Caffreynated

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Of course being a gifted genius is really difficult for me :newwink:
 

Dreamer

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Neither and both. Oddly, context matters.

This is fitting, really, and is how I approach this question.

Generally, I don’t tend to like receiving complements, particularly those that relate to qualities that I feel are eh I don’t know, easy for me? Or really I guess for acts or accomplishments I hope are more a norm rather than an outlier, but, I do enjoy receiving compliments on my work, or rather, compliments paid towards my work or creative pursuits. I tend to put so much of myself into my projects that I feel...shoot, I can’t even say exactly...not pride...whatever.

But receiving criticisms, exposing my weaknesses, I tend to find that fairly easy to take since more often than not, it’s a weakness I’m already aware of and already actively working to ameliorate. And if it isn’t something I wasn’t already aware of, then I welcome the challenge and opportunity to discover a side of myself I hadn’t yet explored.

I guess if I had to choose, I’d say it’s harder to receive compliments, but, context really is everything.
 

Forever

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Reworded: which is harder to accept? Something that you are destined for or something you must overcome to be free?

and that was post #9000 ladies and gentlemen
 

Red Memories

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I agree with Bechimo, it matters.

I've found with my struggles in depression and anxiety I struggle more to accept my positives than my negatives though...
 

Generalist

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I am glad I could here to inspire you. You are welcome.
 

ceecee

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What is harder for you to accept, a gift/talent/aptitude or a weakness/vice/shortcoming? Thanks to anyone who replies.

Most would say the latter but think about it. Ever seen a person that is so gifted yet unable to function well in everyday settings? Normal relationships or social things are impossible for them. Maybe the gifted really do have shortcomings to make up for their gifts because no one can have everything. So I think it could be both/either, depending on the person.
 

Tilt

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My gifts because I struggle with incessant insecurity over my value and skills. Supposedly I am quite talented at writing psychological analytical pieces (I wrote a short piece on eating and coping mechanisms and my therapist, who worked at an eating disorder treatment center, said that I was able encapsulate many of issues better than most of his former colleagues but I still question it).
 

Frosty

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A talent/gift/aptitude. I have so many, you see, that my brain is constantly overstimulated trying to come to terms with how one person could be so exceptional.

 

Maou

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My gifts, because I have none. Ive struggled just to be competent.
 

Earl Grey

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In what context?

A gift is only a gift if you can use it.
A weakness is only a weakness if it actually hinders you.
 

The Cat

Just a Cat who hangs out at the Crossroads
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Gifts and talents ime are much more of a struggle to deal with.

For one failures and shortcomings are en vogue right now. It's very trendy to be broken; its courageous to be able to be open about your short comings. I don't exactly know about that. It does take courage to be open and vulnerable. But I think there's a new sense of what is or isnt acceptable to be open and vulnerable about. Seems a slippery slope, but that ties into my point. It's easy to fall down. Gravity does most of the work. Same with failures. Short comings. If I can't be fixed I don't need to do the work to fix me because what's the point? Or I'm too broken to fix myself, it's up to someone else to fix me. Or maybe even I may be broken but at least I'm not as broken as so and so who does this or that. Slippery, rocky slope, everyone falls down at least once in their life.

But gifts. Talents. those require action. Responsibility. Cultivation. Risk. Delayed gratification Other Scary Words; and more set backs than anyone ever properly prepares you for. And not everyone is going to like your gifts and talents, and some of them wont be popular. Never mind the other sacrifices you make for these precious things you've just stumbled upon about yourself in your life. The parties you don't go to because you're honing a gift; the relationships you were to busy for because well, you have to develop your talents or they go to waste and then what's the point of them? Hours, days, weeks, months, years, decades of blood sweat and tears poured into something that all of a sudden is becoming a discipline, the seeds of raw talent have begun to yeild fruit. If all the conditions are right of course. You can still be objectively talented and gifted and subjectively despised in your lifetime and even beyond. Nobody likes anyone to seem too gifted or talented after all makes the rest of us feel funny.

And then there's the fact that if/when you make it known that you have said talents or gifts, well then everyone wants a piece of you for themselves. Pretty soon you find yourself caught up in a wave of adulation and external praise that all the years of criticism both from others and your (mainly) yourself and for a while you just let that Sea of amazing flow over you, and just float on the currents, and for the briefest of moments in time; everything makes sense, this is the moment you were born for, and life is yours and you feel free bourn up upon the fragile fickle whims of the adulation and admiration of the people in your life both familiar and not.

But then you try to move. And you realize, the crowd holding you up is holding you up, it's holding onto you. And the sea like people's approval is a fickle fierce mistress/master. Everyone wants a piece of you for themselves and most of the time they're willing to tear you apart to get what they want from you. And not just strangers. Friends family. Everyone wants, everyone needs, and everyone has a different strategy for getting that piece. Be it: guilt, guile, love, affection, sex, money, pity, parties, inclusions, exclusion, veiled threats, underhanded compliments, overt ultimatums, behind the scenes dealing, whatever it takes....because After all, you're so gifted and talented. Surely you can handle it. And surely being so, you owe a little piece of that to the rest of us?

But of course...
Because if I couldn't do that much at least?
Well, what kind of a Butler would I be?
 
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