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things I'm tall at
Jan. 28th, 2025 06:45 pmAm trying out this way of thinking:
If I were the tallest person in a group, I'd be the one who helps grab things off high shelves. And that would be fine, as long as it's not All The Time, and other people don't just take me for granted. And probably there would be other things that other people are particularly good at, better than the rest of us, and the little favors we do would all balance out.
There are some activities that I am .... it feels uncomfortable to say that I'm GOOD at them. But I seem to be able to consider myself "tall" at them. That is, I seem to have the ability to do them more easily than the other people I'm around can. How much of that is nature and how much is nurture? What's skill and what's temperament? And am I objectively good at those activities? I can sweep those aside by instead thinking that I am "tall" at them -- for WHATEVER combination of reasons, those shelves seem easy for me to reach, RELATIVE to how the other folks in the group feel.
Example: initiating group social things. I am unintimidated by the prospect of, say, throwing a note up on MetaFilter's IRL site to say: let's get together at this particular date and time! Or, for that matter, blogging, and public speaking, and some other activities that carry some risk of public criticism, or of finding that no one shows up to be audience or to be the other part of the conversation.
The main useful effect of this new "tall" framing is: I can feel less frustrated when other people have a hard time following my lead, and I can accept that I'm going to be one of the people in this group who carries a disproportionate amount of the load for particular activities. I can set up scaffolding, I can teach, etc., but also I can accept that most people just can't or won't do those things.
As long as I don't get super fixed-mindset and Dweck-incompliant about it I think it's fine....
If I were the tallest person in a group, I'd be the one who helps grab things off high shelves. And that would be fine, as long as it's not All The Time, and other people don't just take me for granted. And probably there would be other things that other people are particularly good at, better than the rest of us, and the little favors we do would all balance out.
There are some activities that I am .... it feels uncomfortable to say that I'm GOOD at them. But I seem to be able to consider myself "tall" at them. That is, I seem to have the ability to do them more easily than the other people I'm around can. How much of that is nature and how much is nurture? What's skill and what's temperament? And am I objectively good at those activities? I can sweep those aside by instead thinking that I am "tall" at them -- for WHATEVER combination of reasons, those shelves seem easy for me to reach, RELATIVE to how the other folks in the group feel.
Example: initiating group social things. I am unintimidated by the prospect of, say, throwing a note up on MetaFilter's IRL site to say: let's get together at this particular date and time! Or, for that matter, blogging, and public speaking, and some other activities that carry some risk of public criticism, or of finding that no one shows up to be audience or to be the other part of the conversation.
The main useful effect of this new "tall" framing is: I can feel less frustrated when other people have a hard time following my lead, and I can accept that I'm going to be one of the people in this group who carries a disproportionate amount of the load for particular activities. I can set up scaffolding, I can teach, etc., but also I can accept that most people just can't or won't do those things.
As long as I don't get super fixed-mindset and Dweck-incompliant about it I think it's fine....
