Embracing our strengths

Question: If your teenager comes home with their report card and gets an A in English, an A in History, and a D in Chemistry, what grade would be discussed the most?

This scenario, typical for many teenagers, was discussed at a Strengths Finder half-day seminar I attended at my church a few weekends ago. Most people answered that they would discuss the "D" grade the most, since this is obviously an area where their child has the most room for improvement. Or is it?

For those of you that haven't heard of Strengths Finder, I strongly suggest to buy the book on Amazon or at a local bookstore and complete the test. During the seminar, the speaker discussed the concept of shifting from a weakness-based to a strengths-based paradigm. This means understanding that no matter how hard we try, we will always be weak in certain areas and instead we should focus on developing the natural talents and skills that we have to achieve fulfillment in whatever we have been called to do. He also talked about how this doesn't mean we should avoid our weaknesses but that our society tends to have an obsession with thinking that we can "fix" our weaknesses and lose mental energy by doing this instead of spending this energy embracing and leveraging our strengths in any career or leadership position.

As a future career counselor, I was really inspired in how to apply this kind of thinking with future clients and also with the students I advise currently at UCD. If you do buy the book and take the Strengths Finder test, I'd be interested to know what your top five themes are. Mine happen to be:

Connectedness
Input
Communication
Maximizer
Strategic

Heartbroken for Haiti

It's been a tender-hearted kind of week for me. I cried at church on Sunday. There are horrible things that happen every day, but the situation in Haiti has been too big of a crisis to ignore, yet also too much to comprehend as well. The last natural disaster crisis to invoke so much emotion within me was Katrina. And after having spent a week in New Orleans last summer and seeing the devastation that still is a reality four years after the hurricane, I am overwhelmed with despair at how Haiti, the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, will come back from this. I read "Mountains Beyond Mountains" (highly recommended) last year and this gave me the first glimpse of the history influencing the many factors behind why Haiti is a chaotic nation in many regards-- a destitute economy, lacking basic infrastructure, many people not having access to basic health care and education, and a notoriously corrupt political system. And this was the state of things in Haiti BEFORE the earthquake hit. I've heard some say that maybe the earthquake will be the catalyst needed to rebuild Haiti in a way that creates opportunity for a more stable government and economy. Others remark that a positive effect of this horrible tragedy could be to shed light and raise awareness of the extreme poverty that existed on this island. In a sense, I agree that we cannot remain ignorant of how it was actually the poverty in Haiti, not the earthquake itself, that caused so many of the deaths. I read an article comparing the San Francisco earthquake of 1989 to the Haiti earthquake--both quakes had similar magnitude and affected around the same number of people. However, 67 people died in the SF quake and the death count in Haiti is surpassing 200,000. THAT is the real tragedy--the unjust gap that exists between "developed" and "third-world" countries in terms of infrastructure, etc. Why does this gap exist? That's a much deeper question but it's a good one to ponder.

Another question that came to my mind multiple times this week was "how can people just go about their normal lives after they watch the news and see what's going on in Haiti?!" I see people at the gym reading the latest celebrity trash tabloid magazines while CNN broadcasts another heartbreaking story about Haiti in the background. I have bitter thoughts towards these people---"how can you be so insensitive to the suffering occurring?"And then I found myself doing the same thing as everyone else, trying to set aside all the horrific images of dead bodies, despondent mothers who have lost all their children, and crumbled buildings in order to continue with the regular activities of my day. I am torn between feeling terribly guilty and feeling that I can't dwell in what is happening thousands of miles away.

Right now, I know I can contribute financially to the relief effort and find some hope in praying for Haiti. But I must admit, right now it's hard to shake a feeling of despair. God, help show me that You are bigger than the despair that is enveloping so many in this tragedy.

shalom in the new year

The last part of 2009 was the busiest both David and I had been since we graduated from college. Hence, why I hardly blogged over the last three months--grad school had taken over most of my free time. I'm thoroughly enjoying the break I have until classes start up again the last week of January. During this break, I have had some time to process the introductory semester of my graduate program. There were many frustrations and many exciting educational epiphanies---at times I was learning new philosophies that would equip me to see the world in a new way and in other moments I found myself wondering if I had learned anything at all from

that night's class. I found that I had to adjust my expectations of what my program would be like. There is a lot of focus on learning through discussion and not necessarily from the professor lecturing on the material, which is completely different than my undergrad experience. However, I find that this kind of interactive learning style has caused the textbooks I read and the concepts I'm learning to resonate with me more. I could write a very long post on the new perspectives I have gained from just one of the textbooks that I read called "Privilege, Power, and Difference" by Allan Johnson but instead I will say that it is a must read for anyone who wants to know how to examine and challenge the systems of privilege that exist between themselves and others who are different from them....so basically this includes everyone. Anyhow, I look forward to what my spring classes bring although I will admit that it will be hard to break away from being able to fill my free time with books (of my choosing), movies, and TV.

Speaking of how I spend my time, I have been convicted in various ways about how important it is to spend time on things that MATTER versus things that just waste away the minutes. First, I received an email in which the coordinator of a post-college church group talks about how distractions have taken a toll in her relationship with God and how she cannot find time to pray or read Scripture and yet finds plenty of time each day to browse around on Facebook. Hmmm....sounds familiar.

Secondly, I am reading Don Miller's new book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, and he draws parallels between how living a life with purpose and meaning is similar to writing a good story. He goes on to say how "the world needs for us to write something better" in the story of our lives. He suggests that when we live a story, we are telling the people around us what we think is important and that most of us have settled for a story of just existing versus actually living.

Lastly, I heard a sermon this morning while visiting the church my brother attends in Santa Cruz. The pastor, Dan Kimball, began a new sermon series on "Shalom" and how to holistically live a life of peace and balance that Jesus offers us. He explained the view that while we tend to put spirituality as one of the many categories in our lives, that actually ALL aspects of our lives are spiritual and relate to our faith including career, relationships, finances, health, and how we spend our time. Therefore, this means that as much as possible, we need to try to find balance in all of these areas to fully experience the wholeness, peace, and harmony that is referred to as the "shalom" in the Bible. We will all need to work on finding balance in some areas more than others and after the sermon I found myself reflecting on the two main areas I'd like to "rebalance" in 2010: time management and health. I need to realize that most of the time, there truly are enough hours in the day to do what I need to do without staying up past midnight thus creating a cycle where I wake up exhausted and am perpetually late for everything. I may not do everything I want to do in a day (watch a movie, browse FaceBook, read random blogs) but in the 16-17 hours I'm awake, I can get the important stuff done (work, school, building friendships, building my marriage) and the other frivolous ways to spend time should not be a priority because while they are not bad, they don't actually help me experience the "shalom" that God gives freely if I am open to receiving it.

I hope to be mindful of this philosophy in 2010, especially because once I begin spring semester in a few weeks, I will need to live out this philosophy to stay sane. So to put words into action, I will end this blog post in order to go to bed to rest before a new day begins.

Final thought: this year is a blank page, what story will we tell in it?