Weakness

Do you know your weakness?

Not your vices and what you feel that you can't live without, but the character flaw that helps make you who you are, for better or worse.

My biggest weakness is thinking too much about the little things that probably shouldn't matter. Like the opinions of people who aren't my friends; like the lack of friendliness and manners in shop assistants and the general public in London; like the way an English-speaking person might say an English sentence totally wrong, for example 'I could of went to the football match...'; like over-analysing something that I want to do, so that sometimes I persuade myself out of a dream. Sometimes these things drive me crazy and I dwell on an incident or a person. I almost make myself ill with this kind of thinking, especially when I wonder why people don't care about these things!

But I try to step back and reason with myself, because part of me sees that the things that bother me don't really matter. This weakness is a trait that is part of me. One that I am working on and trying to thin out a little, but one that I suspect will remain. My goal is to make it more of an endearing quality than an overbearing flaw.

And then I think 'thank goodness I can see this flaw in me'! I'm not oblivious to the crazy, nor to the occasional unreasonableness, so I can calm it down a bit. It lurches and leaps, but it also softens here and there.

But how many people are aware of their own weaknesses? Someone that I used to work with was generally a good person, but she could never admit when she was wrong, and a consequence of never admitting she was wrong was never apologising for her mistakes. People noticed this and it made her distinctly less appealing, even if the mistakes were tiny. Those that she may have affected with a tiny error here and there were more put out by her inability to just say 'I'm sorry' than by the mistake itself.

But that is just a little trait in an otherwise happy life and character. What about the ones that are character altering without the host even being aware of it? Someone I used to know, who I was fond of, managed to fool me as well as himself into thinking that he was an easy-going chap. But I've realised in retrospect that he had a few significant knots that needed loosening. 

I'm going to compare him now to a cliché of an American jock. Perhaps the captain of the football team in Ohio, the good looking, popular, successful young man who is going out with the prettiest girl, is part of the cool gang and cannot under any circumstances be seen to be doing anything off-beat, like talking to a nerd or going to the 'wrong' party. And he has to go to every mainstream party in case he misses out. This guy I knew was like that! He felt pressurised to conform and to make sure he had the right friends, that he was doing what appeared to be the right thing and doing what he thought made him happy, but not what he felt made him happy. He feared being an outsider, and was terrified of being alone. And who doesn't worry about being lonely from time to time? I suppose it's a little taboo to associate oneself with that word, but it's a feeling that can fester and is an effort to quash.

And on the outside it seems like he has removed traces of loneliness, but does he feel  happy? The point is that I see this as a weakness, and one that he won't admit to. But when/if he does, will he choose to change direction? I don't think so, which implies that he's doomed to a life of almost-happiness. And I don't think this is uncommon.

Some people are just naturally appealing. They just make other people feel good, they have a happy disposition, and they know when they like a person or not. (The extreme person of this nature is, I think, really rare but you can't miss them when they're around.) These are the strong people who can cut the people out of their lives that they don't like or who offer nothing but misery and nastiness, rather than hold on to another number in the crowd for the sake of appearances. These people are the complete opposite to those who just 'make do' with appearance, or who hold on to 'tactical' friends (the latter of whom are the worst simply because of the underlying deceit). 

This all seems to be about shallow aesthetics that do nothing to make you feel good. We can't all be like those gorgeous creatures that attract everyone for all the golden reasons, but surely there's room for a little more honesty? And certainly there is room for recognising the strong values before those harbouring the fear of loneliness hurt the ones who truly care.