Your Greatest Asset

... is you. We all know that in theory. We might even admit it to ourselves or others. But chances are, like me, you only think a small part of yourself is an asset, you know the academic degrees or job title or the ability to influence and make friends or the ability to make money.  Others might include artistic talents or prowess in sports in their list of assets. But these are all the things that make you or I the same as everyone else. Our real assets are the things that make us different. 

Unfortunately the things that make us different we are often ashamed of.  They may seem trivial, like the ability to memorize entire movie conversations or see treasures hidden beneath piles of junk at a garage sale. Or they may be embarrassing like the way we think our voice sounds to others or the way our thoughts may drift when we are supposed to be paying attention.

In reality each of us is a complex picture made up of a myriad of experiences, character traits, talents, perspectives, interests, etc. Most of us sell ourselves way short. Today I want to start challenging that. 

So how do we stop editing, censoring  and criticizing ourselves? Let's face it, we often say things about ourself to ourself that we wouldn't say to a friend. Maybe we need to start treating ourselves like we were actually were our friend. That means showIng curiosity, interest and acceptance in the things that make us who we are. 

 

I will go first. I love looking at little parts of bigger things. Whereas some people will take the panoramic view, I am usually focused on something like the texture of a gourd or a cloud of rusty staples sticking out of a phone pole... something that seems irrelevant compared to the overall setting. Don't ask me why. Of course when I bring the little thing to everybody else's attention I get a polite 'that's nice'. But searching for and finding one of these things is deeply meaningful to me. I have a 'collection' of them. I decided to start sharing my collection on a Tumblr called MosaicScapes. If you are interested you can click here and see my collection so far. 

I want to encourage you this week to show curiosity in something that is uniquely you... treating yourself like the treasure you are. 

Daniel

The best mosaics have a lot of pieces.