Contents
Step 38: “Recognizing a weakness in something, far from weakening you, strengthens you”
The 88 rungs of happy people
In this chapter of «The 88 Steps of Happy People» I tell you why I have learned that weaknesses make you stronger
Since in this book I do not stop revealing, one after another, things that I did wrong, I am going to add one more to that long list (and by doing so, I will be complying with the Step’s own teaching). For a long time I believed that acknowledging your weaknesses makes you weak. Today I think it makes you strong. It is the strength that comes from being vulnerable. If you allow me some advice, do not shut up your weaknesses. Now you will see why it is a good advice. These are the three main reasons.
The first, because every time you hide what is not going well in your life it is because you are perpetuating the character of the previous Step, which, of course, has nothing to do with you. “If I am weak, I want to be seen as what I am not, that is, as strong.” But people who live in a character (and we all do to some degree) are in enormous danger: that of being caged in their own cage. This is the prison of famous people or people who consider themselves important and now they feel obliged to defend that image of importance. Living defending an image weakens you, and let go of it (recognize weaknesses, show yourself vulnerable, recognize that you do not have to defend any image because your true self has no image) strengthens you.
In addition, all the people who end up overcoming the desire to defend an image that they have created of themselves reach the same conclusion. They lived convinced that a thousand terrible things would happen if they put the character aside (going out without makeup if you have been a model, singing at karaoke if you have been a singer, joining a course as a student when you have been a teacher, going for a run overweight when you were thin before, leaving home when you have been fired from an important position), and when they do discover something absolutely wonderful. And the thing is … Nothing happens!
Second. Every time you hide something, your world shrinks, and every time you reveal it, your world expands. Why? Because hiding enslaves and revealing frees.
If you spend your whole life hiding your vulnerabilities, possibly the world will be able to detect them anyway, and on top of that you will be bearing the burden of having to hide them every minute of the day, with all the work that this requires. The mere fact of stopping hiding them, in itself, already makes you less vulnerable (it is the strength that gives you to recognize weaknesses), and it also frees you.
Y third. There is an almost miraculous correlation between the weaknesses you recognize and the help you receive. You say that you have a sales problem in your company or with the education of your children, or else you tell all your neighbors that you have lost your dog, even though you were ashamed («What image am I going to give of myself? same! ”), and in a seemingly magical way, you start to attract people who help you with that problem or even solve it.
However, there is nothing magical about it. What you have done by revealing it is providing a door to help, and the human being, when given a door, usually has a tendency to open it. We all love to help, but only if you provide us with the how, and that requires telling not only what is going well for you, but also being honest about what is going wrong for you; not just everything you know, but everything you need to know. Do you know what people who know more have in common? Which are the same as they don’t mind admitting that they know less. And consequently … they ask.
@Angel
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