For years I’ve struggled with the idea I am not valuable because I produce less than a healthy, employed person. The notion we are defined by our productivity, I’m sure, is rooted in some western capitalistic thought, and it was firmly embedded in me. I look back at my ‘best’ productive years as a disabled person and see I was publishing something every two to three days. In other words, my life was little more than me sitting in front of the computer screen trying to produce things as much as humanly possible to fill some gap inside. I took pride, something rare for me, in how much I made, but these days, I seldom go back and reference the material I produced then—quantity over quality.
I am someone of strength, as we all are. Mine are Love, Humility, Honesty, Kindness, and Justice. I value having close relations with others, in particular those in which sharing and caring are reciprocated. I tend to let my actions speak for themselves, and I don’t regard myself as more special than I am. I talk about the truth, but I present myself more broadly as genuine and sincere without pretense. I enjoy doing favors and good deeds for others. I treat all people the same and give everyone a fair chance. Most of my strengths lie in more passive states of being and less in active forms of doing.
We are more than our focus. If we ask ‘who are you?’ to someone, we tend to get an answer about what they focus on; we get to know their job, hobbies, or other thoughts occupying their time. I don’t need to focus on Love, Humility, Honesty, Kindness, and Justice; these flow from me naturally. I don’t need to focus on beating my heart; I do it automatically. However, when I think of my idea of self-worth, I do not consider my character strengths because I’ve fallen into the trap of only looking at the narrow lens of focus. I only think about the actions I’ve accomplished or failed.
It is difficult for me to be productive for several reasons: memory issues, mood instability, anxiety problems, etc. We, as conscious beings, are good at identifying and focusing on problems. We are also adept at giving the negative sides of a situation more weight than the positives. The tendency to disproportionately favor negativity is even higher in analytical people like myself, even though my motivations come from a good place, wanting to be helpful. As we narrow the focus on something, we tend to ignore everything else more successfully. At some point, we forget all else other than our focus, and therein lies the problem. We stop valuing anything not in the narrow cone of focus because we forget it exists.
My character strengths manifest themselves in several ways. I’m patient, thoughtful, insightful, forgiving, and available. However, I don’t sit in front of the computer and produce ‘thoughtful,’ so I tend not to value it as I should. Instead of attempting to broaden my focus, I need to redefine the self to include everything that needs no focus at all. It’s ok to value the things I am instead of only the things I do. Where we shift our focus to changes constantly, we are a part of something much larger. We are much more than the pile of actions we think about, and it’s ok to value all of ourselves.