Be stingy with one's greatness (motivation post)

Photo by Ryanniel Masucol from Pexels

 

When you are equipped with a considerable amount of knowledge, skills, unusual abilities--both requisite and nonessential--which are of value to you and more importantly to others, do not be an open book. Do not be a sample copy in a big bookstore chain where only the cover, table of chapters/contents, or physical appearance are given any time and consideration. Note that I'm not talking about the workforce or when you're in a job interview, which certainly compel you to showcase what you can put on the table in order to achieve a common goal whether helping make a company achieve its place in the Forbes 100 or how the breadth of your experience in transcranial magnetic stimulation makes you the most competent person who should be hired to zap neurons in the motor cortex in a breakthrough study. In those circumstances, you should be an open book...or maybe provide a complimentary chapter in your book. Are you catching up? Bueno.

Be an onion. A large white onion in a mountain of other white onions among other varieties of onions along the vegetable aisle of a supermarket. Be unassuming. Not for false modestly or self-righteousness. This is difficult, because depending on the type and degree of provocation, one's pride will tend to nurse itself. If someone tells you randomly and without prompt, I have very strong thumbs and I can see that yours are stubby, you might be tempted to retort, Well, I've been using thumb kettlebells to train my opposable digits as I'm representing my local library in the annual provincial canned sparkling water tab opening competition where the prize is a lifetime supply of canned La Croix sparkling water in passion fruit or mango...halt, stop, brake. Too much information. Lots of adrenaline mixed with pride.

My recommendation: examine the other creature. Squint your eyes to adjust your focus. Scratch your chin. Ask yourself: Does this animate form deserve to know the greatness of my existence? While one's instinct  would understandably resort to wallowing in self-doubt and pity and immediately write a mental note to shop online for fashionable gloves to disguise said stubby thumbs, pivot your thoughts. Does this person really need to know that your stubby thumbs are athletic grade or that you were once at the peak of your academic career and have a good grasp of the sciences or that you were a virtuoso and a multi-instrumentalist or that you've traveled to a Scandinavian nation alone or that you've seen a Van Gogh or rubbed elbows with notable figures or that you have a hefty pen collection? Is this creature worth divulging this valuable information? Do you see this creature as being part of your life? Do you need this person's validation? If your response is No to at least one of these questions, then imagine that superglue currently exists between your upper and lower lip and smile. Smile a knowing smile. A non-condescending antagonistic smile. Maybe a this-person-is-such-a-poor-cutie smile. Tell yourself, Oh no, I'm not interested in this game and I am not playing. The layers of my precious onion are reserved for certain entities...or maybe nobody at all. *hair flip*