Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Strengths

My Top Five Strengths:

Empathy
You can sense the emotions of those around you. You can feel what they are feeling as though their feelings are your own. Intuitively, you are able to see the world through their eyes and share their perspective. You do not necessarily agree with each person's perspective. You do not necessarily feel pity for each person's predicament-this would be sympathy, not Empathy. You do not necessarily condone the choices each person makes, but you do understand. This instinctive ability to understand is powerful. You hear the unvoiced questions. You anticipate the need. Where others grapple for words, you seem to find the right words and the right tone. You help people find the right phrases to express their feelings-to themselves as well as to others. You help them give voice to their emotional life. For all these reasons other people are drawn to you.

Developer
You see the potential in others. Very often, in fact, potential is all you see. In your view no individual is fully formed. On the contrary, each individual is a work in progress, alive with possibilities. And you are drawn toward people for this very reason. When you interact with others, your goal is to help them experience success. You look for ways to challenge them. You devise interesting experiences that can stretch them and help them grow. And all the while you are on the lookout for the signs of growth-a new behavior learned or modified, a slight improvement in a skill, a glimpse of excellence or of "flow" where previously there were only halting steps. For you these small increments-invisible to some-are clear signs of potential being realized. These signs of growth in others are your fuel. They bring you strength and satisfaction. Over time many will seek you out for help and encouragement because on some level they know that your helpfulness is both genuine and fulfilling to you.

Belief
If you possess a strong Belief theme, you have certain core values that are enduring. These values vary from one person to another, but ordinarily your Belief theme causes you to be family-oriented, altruistic, even spiritual, and to value responsibility and high ethics-both in yourself and others. These core values affect your behavior in many ways. They give your life meaning and satisfaction; in your view, success is more than money and prestige. They provide you with direction, guiding you through the temptations and distractions of life toward a consistent set of priorities. This consistency is the foundation for all your relationships. Your friends call you dependable. "I know where you stand," they say. Your Belief makes you easy to trust. It also demands that you find work that meshes with your values. Your work must be meaningful; it must matter to you. And guided by your Belief theme it will matter only if it gives you a chance to live out your values.

Input
You are inquisitive. You collect things. You might collect information-words, facts, books, and quotations-or you might collect tangible objects such as butterflies, baseball cards, porcelain dolls, or sepia photographs. Whatever you collect, you collect it because it interests you. And yours is the kind of mind that finds so many things interesting. The world is exciting precisely because of its infinite variety and complexity. If you read a great deal, it is not necessarily to refine your theories but, rather, to add more information to your archives. If you like to travel, it is because each new location offers novel artifacts and facts. These can be acquired and then stored away. Why are they worth storing? At the time of storing it is often hard to say exactly when or why you might need them, but who knows when they might become useful? With all those possible uses in mind, you really don't feel comfortable throwing anything away. So you keep acquiring and compiling and filing stuff away. It's interesting. It keeps your mind fresh. And perhaps one day some of it will prove valuable.

Arranger
You are a conductor. When faced with a complex situation involving many factors, you enjoy managing all of the variables, aligning and realigning them until you are sure you have arranged them in the most productive configuration possible. In your mind there is nothing special about what you are doing. You are simply trying to figure out the best way to get things done. But others, lacking this theme, will be in awe of your ability. "How can you keep so many things in your head at once?" they will ask. "How can you stay so flexible, so willing to shelve well-laid plans in favor of some brand-new configuration that has just occurred to you?" But you cannot imagine behaving in any other way. You are a shining example of effective flexibility, whether you are changing travel schedules at the last minute because a better fare has popped up or mulling over just the right combination of people and resources to accomplish a new project. From the mundane to the complex, you are always looking for the perfect configuration. Of course, you are at your best in dynamic situations. Confronted with the unexpected, some complain that plans devised with such care cannot be changed, while others take refuge in the existing rules or procedures. You don't do either. Instead, you jump into the confusion, devising new options, hunting for new paths of least resistance, and figuring out new partnerships-because, after all, there might just be a better way.



I'm definitely an arranger, because I like to make lists and rearrange them multiple times before getting anything done, just to see if I can finish what I need to any earlier.
I also do like to collect things (Input) like stationery and glass/crystal animals, and just a lot of things that actually mean something and stuff that I like. I also love to travel and learn things about other cultures and use that in other aspects of my life.
I stick strong to what I believe. I love God and that's not going to change.
I like to help people and see them smile. I don't like seeing them upset.
And I'm not so sure about the developer one, but I do like to see people get passionate about something and succeed in it.

Anyway, what do you all think?

-.Shannon.-

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Who Am I?

Just Be Me

I want to write
but I don't know
where to start

I want to sing
but I don't know
what to sing

I want to be
the world's hero
but I don't know
how to jump

I don't know
how to save a life
or how to give one up

I want to be
the best I can be
but where do I start
how can I
just be me?

I don't know who I am, or at least I didn't. I struggle with this issue of who I am in this world. And then I realized that I am not of this world and who am I is not a part of it. I am God's child, his beloved and I belong to Him. My life, my body, my words are his. My emotions, my mindset, my actions, they all belong to him. Without him I do not exist, I do not function.
I knew it, but I forgot that until this year, until this week. I don't know who I'm going to be, or what God even has planned for me in this life. All I know is that who I am today is a child sitting in His arms, relying solely on his strength and his love to get me through this day and the rest of my life, however long that might be.
I am not incompetent, nor am I a fake. I don't dress up and put on a fake smile, even though sometimes I do. Who I am is deeper than that. It's in my eyes, it's in my soul. It's in my writing most of all. It's a sick, twisted lie, a pathetic excuse for a human being. A messed up, screwed up worthless nothing. But that is why God loves me, and that is why God saved me. And in him I am truly free. In him, I am worth something. I am valued, and I am precious in his sight. I may be nothing to this world, but I am everything to him.
That's all I need to be.