A friend shared an article from the Huffington Post entitled “50 Eye-Opening Questions to Ask Your Grandchildren.” In reading the piece, I realized it could serve as inspiration for this childless 30-year-old. It would be a good exercise for me… for all of us. So here’s to a new series of questions. I’m going to pick my favorites and share over the coming months. May you also be inspired to reflect deeply on your own answers.
Question: What’s something you’re really good at?
If you’d asked me at age seven, I would have told you riding bikes and climbing trees and making cwafts—the last a product of an inability to pronounce Rs. I’d probably show you the pillow I’d just learned how to hand sew and stuffed with tissues from the bathroom because I couldn’t fathom the idea of waiting for the next morning to go to the fabric store and purchase proper stuffing.
If you’d asked me at age seven, I would talk about how many books I’d read that month and I’d pull out a short story I’d written and illustrated about three talking cats who fall into a magic mirror and end up in the rainforest. I’d make you sit through a piano recital. I’d show you how many times I could jump over the Skip It.
I’d sing and I’d dance and I’d show off my stuffed animal collection, complete with the backstories of every fluffy friend. And throughout the course of this entire ordeal, at no point would I worry I was being braggadocious.
I liked riding bikes. I felt like I was good at it. So if someone asked me what I was good at, I might have confidently spoken of riding bikes. But at some point I grew up and two things happened.
First, I realized there were people who were much, much better at riding bikes than I was. In fact, there were people who were so good at riding bikes that that became their career. Suddenly to say I was good at riding bikes after an afternoon of peddling up and down the neighborhood hills felt silly.
And second, it felt incorrect to claim I was “really good at something.” I either felt like I wasn’t. Or I didn’t want to sound like I was arrogant or full of myself.
The reality is that there will always be someone better than me at most of the things I love to do. What’s so exciting about being a writer who also reads a lot is that each book I open inspires me with the magic of someone else’s words and ideas. How creative! How smart! But why would I stop doing something or sell myself short on something just because someone else is good at it too?
And why should it feel incorrect to claim I’m good at something? Reader, I’m really good at so many things. In the least humble way possible, I think it’s so cool that I get to be someone who can sit here now and confidently say that I am really good at things and that’s awesome.
So at 30, what’s something I’m really good at? I’m really good at planning travel that is affordable and comfortable and exciting. I’m really good at baking vegan treats. I’m really good at hosting people at my home and at creating a space that is welcoming and inviting. I’m really good at my job. I’m really good at things that have nothing to do with my job.
Perhaps most important. I’m really good at loving people. I’m really good at loving myself.
Your turn. What are you really good at? Now isn’t the time for humility.
You’re really good at a lot. Own it.
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