Everybody is a genius. But, if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it’ll spend its whole life believing that it is stupid.” (attributed to Albert Einstein)
Traditional wisdom is to keep our attention on fixing our flaws. The premise goes its important to continuously work through our shortcomings. It comes from the notion that a soul is like a car, computer or house — if broken, then fix it.
But we really don’t work that way. Thus, this didn’t seem to an effective modus operandi in my life. I felt diluted, distracted, frustrated, deficient, and with low self-worth…with a seeming never ending list of “flaws to fix”…which never stayed fixed. It felt like trying to straighten the tail of a dog, as my father would say, regarding futile efforts — the tail simply curls back up.
More recent wisdom however points to owning our strengths, while spending much less effort fixing our flaws. This seems to work much better for me…and I am not only happier, but feel more capable and clear in what I can offer the world.
However, something still feels off — namely, it’s the concepts of strengths and flaws themselves.
How about we change the words around to be what I feel they REALLY represent. What if the phrase really means this:
Own our VALUE, and drop APPROVAL seeking. That’s what I feel is going on behind the scenes. As “fractals of Consciousness” (what I sometimes call myself)…we are already complete in and of ourselves — the reason we feel we fall short is not because we aren’t balanced enough, or shored up enough, or aligned enough, or clear enough, or articulate enough, or embodied enough, or smart enough, or fixed enough..but rather because there’s more of our value to be OWNED.
When we acknowledge our inherent value, the universe itself starts to align around our purpose rather than us trying to align around an arbitrary standard of approval of systems or people around us. What we previously considered flaws start to magically feel like untapped potential.
On the flipside, we stop trying to fix the world, or fix others around us…and instead naturally help others feel enlivened and inspired.
NOTE: we’re STILL constantly learning and growing on this life path. The difference is that we aren’t fixing our flaws, but rather expanding our value.
We can spend a lifetime in a futile attempt to fix our flaws and hope to receive validation or approval…or a single moment, moment to moment, expressing our value.
I’ll be upfront — this is a more recent shift for me, over the last few months, and the crystallization of this premise will shake up a lot of my current path and practice. However, it becomes clear the only “flaw” we perhaps have is the judgment we have, and doubt in, our own inherent value.
Ranjeeth Thunga
rkt@perspectivemapper.com