What if the thing you hate the most about yourself is actually an important part of who you are?
Okay, let’s back up a bit with another question: What are the three things that make you who you are? No, this isn’t some lame Christian thing: (dorky answer) “The Father, Son… and what’s the third thing? Right, the Holy goat.” The answer you’re looking for is more personal than that (and hopefully more accurate). It requires thinking about how you would describe yourself and might even include something you don’t like. For instance, I would say the three things that make me who I am are my negative brain, my workaholism, and my creativity. I’m guessing you’re not accusing me of being a braggart right now: “He has a negative brain and he’s a workaholic? How’d he get so lucky!” Other answers for the top three things that make someone who they are can include whatever “oholic” you might have even unusual ones like nice-oholic, guilt-oholic, servant-oholic, worry-oholic, or comfort-oholic. Maybe what makes you who you are includes things like controlling, perfectionist, judgemental, critical (of others or yourself), people pleaser, wise, logical, emotional, optimist, pessimist, pushover, animal lover, or nurturer. Maybe it’s more a label like ADD, bipolar, or autism, or a difficult allergy or body issue. It’s about ignoring the environmental influences and looking solely at you and things that have made your character and personality. Of course, this isn’t an exhaustive list, but rather a few ideas to help you get your thinker thinking.
This past week I was in church (now I’m bragging), and for some reason at random the thought popped in my head: What if my workaholic nature is actually a gift from God? For quite a few years now I’ve been trying to reduce how much of a workaholic I am without much success. Overall, there have been some improvements like I’m better at making sure I get enough sleep whereas I used to try to have as little as possible in order to do more work. I had to stop this, however, because it left me falling asleep anytime I sat down. That’s not a great quality for being a therapist: (me) “My style of therapy is the close my eyes and let you talk for 50 minutes to self explore until my alarm goes off to wake me up… I mean… to let you know when the time is up.” In other lessons I’ve described myself as a “recovering” workaholic, but I think that’s being a bit generous. I’m still a workaholic because I hate wasting time. This is why “relaxing” to me is checking things off my to-do list while beaches freak me out. On the plus side, being a workaholic means I’ve very self motivated.
To be clear, I’m not a job-oholic because I’m not obsessed with my job. I’m also not a busy-oholic because I’m not just busy. Everything I do has a purpose even my Saturday night hang outs with friends. I’m trying to live a healthy lifestyle that includes a balance of addressing the needs of my body, mind, heart, and soul. Unfortunately, my pursuit of being healthy can sometimes leave me unhealthy.
For years I’ve been teaching that what we think is a weakness can actually be a great strength and what we consider our strength can be great weakness since everything has both a good and bad side. For instance, being super smart has its obvious advantages, but then it can make you have little patience for others or it can reduce your ability to emotionally connect with people. Being rich gives the benefit of reducing the stress of paying bills, but it will lead you to miss out on the joy of others being generous to you while putting you in a position where others constantly ask you for money. Being beautiful can be wonderful when it gives you special attention, but it can prevent you from developing proper character and work ethic because things are handed to you. Being super smart, rich, or beautiful, three things our culture sees as being the ideal/the dream can actually be the worst things to happen to someone, especially since all three can cause others to hate you out of envy while also leaving you to struggle to have healthy relationships. For instance, people with these qualities can be left wondering if others are using them or be put into positions of having a lot of options for dating, which means it can be hard to be loyal. Why work through conflict when you can find someone new who will make you feel special? It can be hard being an equal like we’re supposed to be in a long term when you’re used to always getting your way.
I’ve been teaching this idea for many years, yet I hadn’t put it together until now that maybe being a workaholic wasn’t something I should see as a curse I needed to eliminate. This also helps erase the confusion I’ve had where I’ve wondered if I had any option but to be insanely busy. In recent years I’ve questioned if God made me a workaholic or was that the sign I missed doing what He really wanted me to do. That’s why Sunday was such a big moment for me. I was given my answer: I was made to be a workaholic because God was trying to protect me from my brain.
The three things that make me who I am, my negative brain, my workaholism, and my creativity, are all very important for keeping me balanced. That’s right. Not only do I see my workaholism as a gift, I now can see that God blessed me with a negative brain. All three of these things are important for making me who I am. Why’d it take so long to realize this? Being smart obviously isn’t part of my top three things.
So what’s the benefit of having a negative brain? You can see things that need changing or risks that can help you avoid doing something stupid like anyone in the YouTube Fail videos missed. Being negative can lead people to addictions like drinking in order to hide from the negative thoughts, but all the best comedians are negative. They see things that others don’t and then with creativity they find a way to make fun of it. They make their negative observations funny. Without the creativity side, however, it’d be easy to be a downer, but fortunately when the three things that make me who I am work together (sometimes they’re like siblings that fight), they make me better.
I’ve had clients who were negative brained, but didn’t have the workaholism or creativity to help balance them, which was a problem. When you focus on the question of “What’s the point?” without something like vanity, being a people pleaser, or workaholism to push you to get moving, you can get really stuck. Even if you have a creative side, what’s the point in the doing anything? Life is ultimately meant to be a balance of “it’s just a short life where nothing we do really matters in the light of eternity,” “life is a gift we should try to enjoy” (with a side of “we should use this life to prepare for the next.”) If we miss the balance, we’re in trouble, especially if we get stuck on “nothing we do really matters.”
On their own, my negative brain and workaholism can be pretty terrible, but in math we learn that multiplying two negatives makes a positive. I’d argue this is the same for me; my negative brain and workaholism work together to make me a better person. Of course, I’m not saying I should just be negative or a workaholic and not try to reduce how strong they are. I don’t want to exacerbate their drawbacks. Instead, I need to keep them under control. After all, I’ll never eliminate them; they are part of me. Instead of feeling shame for who we are, we should find the good in it and work at making what we have better.
This week may you consider what makes you who you are even if it seems negative on the surface in order to realize how beneficial it actually is.
Rev. Chad David, ChadDavid.ca, learning to love dumb people (like me)
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