A Resilient Advantage: Embracing Your Natural Strengths

Cait Flanders is more than my inspiration. As I read it, she goes through a journey that I feel I am doing in a different order. She describes overwhelming debt as her doorway to discovering the end of alcohol, consumerism, the rat race, and inauthenticity cloaked as an ideal self. But let her tell it – please, read her book, because my words might be inaccurate and not how she’d summarize it.

Like her, I quit trying to pull off an “ideal self” and made peace with my authentic nature. My doorway wasn’t my wealth, but my health.

Today, I am happily retired and living out the dream I had for myself twenty years ago.

But she reminds me that I still need to tackle one goal I’ve avoided my whole life: becoming social.

I’ve avoided finding like-minded individuals, reaching out and connecting. So, here I am, believing that although I haven’t met them yet, there are people like me out there, and I thank Cait Flanders for my hope and the luck of finding Substack.

While I try this new thing and accept the possibility that I will make mistakes, Albert Einstein comforts me. He said, “Anyone who’s never made any mistakes has never tried anything new.”

Forgive him for being a scientist and not a psychologist, because the other explanation is that they are a narcissist. They believe they’ve never made any mistakes.

Instead, they have a unique way of looking at the world that keeps them perfect. The older they get, the more warped that world becomes, the more critical it remains intact, and the more desperate their actions to maintain it.

Making Mistakes

In an interview, when asked about mistakes they’ve made, a narcissist answers, “Well, I’ve never made a mistake, but if I did, I’d take accountability and apologize appropriately, which means going so far as to do what it takes to make it right or make it better.” It’s a textbook answer but one they will never carry out.

When asked about my worst mistake, I have no shortage of things to pick from. I’ve tried too many new things not to have a long list.

I’ve made many mistakes in my life, actions I’ve characterized as decisions into which I put careful and considered thought and yet did the wrong thing. Either my analysis was off, or I failed on execution.

Earlier, I’ve discussed how I’ve lied, constantly and chronically, and couldn’t stop myself from crying while doing it. I wasn’t lying for me.

I’ve also committed errors of omission, where there are things that I should have done but didn’t. For example, apologies or gratitude that existed only in my head and were not delivered to the appropriate party.

Almost all of my mistakes, lies, and omissions involved listening to someone else over what I knew to be true, believed to be right, or felt more strongly toward—ignoring myself.

That’s why an engineer writes a book about authenticity.

That’s how a girl who had a childhood dream to be quoted in a book has her dream come true. There, in a textbook used for introductory students at Texas A&M, I read my name and quote.

I was so proud; I told no one. I wanted the box checked, not the pedestal that might go with it. The desire was to be part of the crowd – not above it, not alienated from it, but within it, part of it, belonging.

Following Frustration

My quote was lifted from a comment I made on an article published in Harvard’s Business Review magazine. The author of the article advised leveraging your disruptive strengths. Someone asked in the comments how to do that since the article stuck to the theoretical argument alone and did not discuss its execution.

I’m all about what’s practical, whether there is a foundational theory or not.

I left my thoughts about how to do it, which ended up in the textbook. I laughed because I thought I would have to be an author myself to be quoted, yet I’d been able to skip over that requirement.

Phew, becoming a best-selling author might have been a much more arduous journey, and I am happy to find out and complete the circle with the missing effort. I hope to have the time and opportunity to do so.

My advice was to follow your frustration. When it comes easily to you, you expect that of others, but they will chronically let you down. You will rally and complain that people are stupid, but what if your view is upside down?

Flip that perspective and accept that those people are smart, so that must make you a genius.

Hello, genius.

Replace that frown with a smile and that frustration with appreciation and have another look at you, baby.

I call it the frustration of genius. When my partner gets upset at everyone else’s boating skills, I ask him how many other people might have fifty years of experience as he does.

You are not a narcissist if you are disappointed by others’ performance. A narcissist knows and expects that they are the best. As such, they shrug at others’ failures, not frustrated, but satisfied that their worldview has been confirmed.

Spying Character

Last week, I mentioned mourning the death of the work ethic and the kids who can’t even stand their part-time shifts—forget actually working them.

In a shocking turn of events, The Princess brought a chair to work.

After losing the stool because she sat on it too much and being told repeatedly not to sit in the manager’s chair, she thought it appropriate to bring her own chair to work.

She not only brought her own chair to work but also made her dad carry it in for her.

Why didn’t her dad know this was highly inappropriate? Her co-workers knew, but had no idea what to do about it, except to share stories all over town about the extent of her laziness and entitlement.

We all can’t wait for someone to call to check her references. We’re making notes so we don’t forget just how horrible she was.

Her 15-year-old co-worker said he thinks it’s because she used to be a lifeguard—she’s used to sitting on her butt on the job, and, he says, she just draws all the time.

I said, “But have you seen Baywatch? They always seem to be running. Always on guard, anyway.”

As a manager, I could have said, “Get out of here with that chair. I don’t pay you to sit down. If that’s all you can do, there’s the door. Don’t come back.”

But I’m not the manager.

I asked the manager if she knew why the stool disappeared.

“I assumed it was obvious,” he said.

Assume nothing is obvious, especially with people who are going only to see the explanation they want.

You are better off assuming everyone thinks of themselves as good people and then proceeding from there.

She said, “It was about time you got rid of that rickety thing.” It’s my bet that she thinks you can’t afford a better stool, so she thinks she’s doing you a favour.

Things in my life were sometimes upside down. For instance, I thought I was doing someone a favour with my sacrifice, only to find out that they thought they did me a favour by letting me.

When it was my older sister, she “let me” spend hundreds of dollars and all my vacation time driving to her house to make sure she was okay in the wake of her relationship dissolution, including when I had to haul her out of a snowbank so she didn’t freeze to death.

Some guy “let me” blow him. It’s called a job, I reminded him.

I’ve had enough of one-sided relationships and people who always land on the favourable side of judgment.

Seriously, don’t do me any favours. They aren’t worth the cost, the debt, or whatever you are going to charge me for them.

My younger sister learned I was renting my house and offered to make an internet ad. I shrugged. Later, to my utter shock, she threw me a bill, despite not one booking coming from it.

My dad said, “Just pay it! You have the money!”

At least he’s no longer bossing me around, robbing me of my dignity, and opening the door to scam artists. I couldn’t tell you if he’s still alive – I had to embrace becoming my first priority.

Who was to do it, if not me? Like they keep saying, and we keep needing to hear, put your own mask on first. At your best, you can bring your best to whomever and whatever needs it.

Misapplied Audacity

She brought her own chair to a job that isn’t a sit-down job. What audacity! If she could have channelled that audacity better, she wouldn’t be working her first job at the age when most people are moving out.

It turns out that she didn’t apply—her father applied for her. That revelation made me realize that what I said about the parents being part of the problem in my last post applies here, too.

Next time I’ll ask, “Just how useless is this kid of yours and why is that my problem?”

Or at least I’ll ask, “What are her hobbies?” If drawing is mentioned, sorry, but the last two strike outs were also self-described artists who didn’t bring their own material. The last one used the business cards, which of course are not free, and I was there to hear, “Can you at least use the back of receipts instead?”

This one uses the printer paper. I saw a notebook in her bag, but why use her own when she can rob you?

Someone asked her where to find a good restaurant. She said, “If you go that way, there is (name of store).”

“Do they sell food?” he asked.

“No,” she said, “They sell groceries.”

Did he ask where to get groceries? No. The conversation continued painfully until the line became too long.

I finally interrupted. “Look, there’s a pizza place right over there. Since you are on dirt bikes, take the trail right there and it’s seconds.”

Every conversation with her is a fishing expedition where she doesn’t answer a single thing asked. I think she’s a politician in the making and a Liberal one at that. A word salad disappointment. But, as sad as it might be, there’s a home for that.

Uninformed Cruelty

Recently, in midst of a family crisis, I drove over to fetch the keys for the mailbox from someone else’s house.

I remarked that her garden looked beautiful and I meant it.

She asked me how my garden looked, since I had access to lake water. I learned that she was on a well. With the drought, the water was reserved for drinking, cooking and cleaning.

I felt dumb and privileged, like asking a Nova Scotian how their garden is growing. Let alone she’d been away for a week, letting any weeds take hold more than they would have normally been able.

I was so callous.

She asked me how the dock was and if it was as beautiful as it sounded. It took three years to build, and it started with my getting hypothermia. It slowed when I smashed my favourite finger, and it was mostly a series of hot, dry weekends hauling rock.

Later, making sense of her tone, I realized she may know none of my personal effort or sacrifice. My partner has a tendency of saying, “I” when “We” is the more scientific term.

“You should come over and enjoy it, anytime,” I told her, and I hoped it sounded the way I meant it – honestly.

I told her to call me if she needed a ride over, or anything, and she said she would. I left with a social smile, because I knew she didn’t even know my phone number and she wasn’t asking for it.

That’s fine, she knows where I live. From my tan, she likely thinks I am lounging on the dock all day. After all, isn’t that what retired people do?

Honed Anger

There are many commercials I can’t stand. A recent one features an old white guy telling me, “Retirement can be your way.” Thanks for the permission. I retired at 47, and my financial advisor had a hard time understanding it. His software had to be appropriately tricked.

Another is, “No one likes to be told what to do, except when someone says, hey, eat a Reese’s.” Are you kidding me? Someone once pointed out to me that people love to be told what to do because it absolves them of accountability. Since then, I can’t stop seeing it everywhere. (Hey, it’s not my fault I’m overweight; the commercial told me to do it.)

The loss of human potential through obedience and expectation angers me, especially as we are at the dawn of the Robotic Age. Robots are having their first Olympics. They are being asked more questions than Google. They are gearing up to take over nursing, surgery, you name it.

I thought I needed to be on Facebook. Within two hours, I was signed up, flagged for inappropriate content, appealed the allegation, and was permanently denied and shut down.

In the end, I realized I didn’t want to be in a world ruled by robots with no humanity whatsoever. I’d just experienced it, and it didn’t feel fair. In the end, I have no idea what I did wrong, and whatever I did was unintentional.

But I was left with no insight, no ability to correct my ways – no chance to learn or grow. Just cancelled. Like the robot world of zeros and ones, I was zero and there was no greyness about it.

My mistake was obvious, apparently. Like The Princess, I couldn’t see it, and no one would explain it.

I never wanted to be on Facebook anyway. It was with trepidation that I entered, expecting to be exploited, scammed or sold at any moment. It felt disgusting, and I’m happy to be out. If I’d trusted my intuition, I never would have entered.

My gut told me it wasn’t going to work out. If I had someone to help me, I thought it would improve the outcome, so I sought a tutor at the library. The librarian acted like I was a complete luddite and explained the basics. Finally, I followed her instructions, only to be videoed and turfed in the span of two hours.

Oh well. I should also dump my Meta stock since it doesn’t bring me joy; it just brings me profits.

If I were still stumbling anxiously around Facebook, I wouldn’t have found Substack. I think it’s just another example of the wrong door closing leading you to the open one.

Right, then, onward, my new friends! Thank you so much for your attention and consideration. It means the world to me.