I'm challenged right now with doing something for work I find fundamentally uncomfortable. I've talked to a few people and despite that, at my core and when I'm back at my place, I know this is a real challenge that doesn't have an easy answer. In the past I have faced challenges. Getting a degree in Economics was stunning. I've never had any intuition in math. Getting that degree took perseverance and a thick skin. I knew if I got bad grades, I could do more and did. Its one of my proudest achievements. Focus?: When have you been faced with something that other people may not considering challenging but you did and succeeded. How was this managed? Alt Focus: What do other people consider challenging that you don't? Are you able to cold call 300 people a day? Can you run a 4.5/40 (sports reference)? Are you 6'2 and built like Dolph Lungren (back in the day) and don't exercise or worry about diet? My good friend, who I went to Cleveland to see, is a patent attorney. I will never be able to do what he does.
I finished my first 5K last year. I've always had horrible endurance and was never a good runner, so that was a nice personal victory. I dont really get intimidated by anything in my work life. I've run into so many people who are pushed to their limit and then burn out. I love working stressful environments with a big workload and crushing deadlines.
Lol, 5K =/= endurance Faking it. I have a degree in Physics and I have no idea how I pulled that off. I rarely apply what I learned in Physics, and have a tough time actually recalling basics of Physics. Somehow, I graduated in 4 years from a good school, and that included taking one semester off to go live at in ski town. I graduated thank-the laude, probably a hundredth of a point over what was required to have credit. Yet, every time I say I have a BS in Physics, people consider that challenging, but I know the truth that it wasn't. BS is right - it comes very natural to me.
Focus: It's not related to my job but I've had a couple conversations about this recently so it's on the forefront of my mind. There is some block in my brain where numerical measurements are meaningless to me. Like, I have no concept of what an ounce or a kilometer is on its own. I need some kind of real world equivalent I can apply it to in order to get it, and if there isn't an easy equivalent I have no idea what it could be. I try and I try and I TRY to memorize them or push past this somehow but I'm just STUCK. For example, someone mentioned they saw a couple sharing a 64 ounce bottle of juice in public and I had to ask "Is that like a grocery store carton or a bodega fridge bottle?" I can use the distance I walked from my old apartment to the library for my reference for a mile, and a favorite hike of mine for three miles, but if there wasn't a company called 90 Miles Off Broadway in my hometown I wouldn't be able to tell you if it was 50 miles away or 200 miles away. I once ordered a dildo off the internet and saw that the girth was 4 inches around and thought "4's a small number I'm sure it's fine" and then screamed when I opened the box. Etc. This does not seem to be much of a challenge for other people. Alt Focus: I'm not all that scared of rejection, and I don't get terribly upset when I get rejected either. I'm not sure which came first with this, whether I didn't have a problem with rejection and became a freelancer or the other way around, but I forget how awful it would be for a lot of people to constantly put themselves at risk for rejection by having to pitch ideas all the time or randomly reach out to people, tell them how awesome you are, and say they should hire you even if there isn't an officially listed opening. The worst that can happen is saying no, maybe they'll think to themselves "man she's got a lot of nerve," but whatever it's not like I'll ever know. It helps that I'm pretty confident in what I do so I don't think I'm going to totally embarrass myself but other than that I don't know why it doesn't bother me. This applies to dating too. I ask people out or if they want to hook up all the time. It's obviously a little scary and can be upsetting if they say no but it never seems like too big of a deal. This I chalk up to the period when everyone first started thinking whether or not people liked them back was THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN THE WORLD aligning with one of the worst times of my life when I was dealing with much bigger stuff and a crush not liking you back seemed kind of precious in comparison. But since it's the same thing with work I figure there has to be something wired in my brain that way.
This is going to sound kind of stupid, but I am intensely relieved that you posted that. I have the exact same problem and no one I know seems to share it. It's like the world has been gaslighting me for years on this stuff.
That makes ME so relieved! Especially since don't need you do something numbery for work? Everyone just thinks it means I'm bad at math and I'm certainly not a math genius but I work perfectly well with the type of math that I actually need to use from time to time (that's based on tangible things). Also did I do the exact thing I was talking about and make a dildo with a 4in circumference seem huge when it's really not too crazy? Maybe it was 4in wide. I don't know, the moral of the story was it was just a cartoonishly big dildo that was unexpected and unwanted. And yes, nothing boosts a guy's ego more than me trying to guess their size.
Focus: I suck at math. I always have. When I went back to school, I jumped into PreCal despite not taking a class in over 8 years. I couldn't even remember how to do Algebra. I think the school based my "placement" on my SAT/ACT scores from 8 years prior. Anyway, about 2 days into the course I realized how screwed I was. But, instead of transferring to an easier class I hired a tutor and made it my personal mission to do well. I spent so much time studying for that class. Whenever I wasn't at work or school, I was studying. I ended up getting an A in the course. PreCal is a joke to a lot of people, but I was stoked because I hadn't gotten an A in math since 4th grade. Alt: I have amazing body awareness. It's always something that's come naturally to me, even when I was a kid. Someone can give me a verbal or tactile cue to correct something during a class, etc, and I'll make it even if it's subtle (or just a shitty cue from an inexperienced teacher...I can usually figure out what they're attempting). And, I'll apply it long-term. Someone used to tell people that I was like clay because I was so easy to work with. Nowadays this isn't very useful in my everyday life, but it can be fun/interesting.
Or crushes it. I once had a girl guess my size at 7 inches. I quickly said "Yep. That's it. 7 inches all day." Anti- Focus: Being an asshole/dick to people and not even realizing it. I had a 15 year+ friend snap at me one day "Dude, why are you being such a dick?" I genuinely had no idea what he was talking about. As you can imagine, this skill does not translate into quick friendships when meeting people. I've been described as "an acquired taste". Neat.
Financial adviser, so yeah, but that's math and I'm good at math in general. I sometimes describe what we're talking about as "I can't translate measurements to the physical world". I know that 1 mile has 5280 feet in it, I just can't look down the road and tell you how far ahead of us the landmark is. I wonder if there's a term for it? We could be the trendy new disorder.
So did you at least try the dildo out? Anyway, people like you are constantly pissing me off. Whether it's someone trying to give me directions that has no concept of distance, much less the difference between North/East/West/South, or a customer calling me up to build something on their car and can't give me any clue as to what the measurements are, it just makes me want to punch a wall. I know that you/they aren't TRYING to piss me off, but I still find it incredibly annoying. Did you ever think that maybe they're just a bunch of pussies? Seriously though, this may come as a shock to most of you, but I've been told many times that I can -and often do- come off as a total asshole. Supposedly it's a combination of my tone of voice, my facial expressions/body language, my "lack of empathy", and my tendency to say whatever is on my mind. Whatever. I think people act like assholes to me all the time, and you don't hear me bitching. Toughen up and grow a pair.
Focus: I know that I am far from the only person who has ever struggled with their weight, but since there are plenty of people who can either eat what they want and not gain a pound or are content "eating to live," I think that my weight loss is worth mentioning. I was overweight my whole life and was obese when I graduated high school in 2004, and I was probably the only kid in my graduating class of 680 people who was actually medically obese. I ended up going to FSU for my first two years, and since I was going to a party school I told myself that I was going to lose weight by any means necessary. Back in 2004 the Atkins craze was still in full swing, so I did a combination of that and just generally cutting calories. I went from 275 lbs when I graduated high school to 185 lbs just 9 months later. I am not that skinny now, but I have managed to keep my weight at a healthy level for the last 12 years. Alt-Focus: I am only average intelligence and have always been a slow learner and a mediocre student, but I have a photographic memory when it comes to remembering experiences. When I try to talk about memories from high school with anyone I am always surprised to learn that they can only remember like 1 or 2 teachers who they had. I can still list out the names of all my teachers, what classes I had them for, which year I had them, which class period I had them for, the names and faces of most of the students in the class, and where we all sat. I can even do that for a lot of middle school, too. Also, I did quiz bowl in high school (and college), and I could remember all the tournaments that we went to, where we placed, who we beat and lost to at each one, and many of the questions that we heard. All of my teammates, who were the types who made straight A's with minimal effort and got near perfect scores on their SATs, always forgot all of that by the end of the school year and were surprised when I could recall most of it. And it is not like I ever made an effort to remember any of that stuff; it just sticks with me. I guess it may have to do with the fact that I learn by doing; if I have to learn anything visually or by listening then I'm screwed.
Music. One side of my family has musicians, the other doesn't. Guess which side of the family I inherited my musical ability from? Music never came easy for me, but it was something I really, really wanted to do. I watched others with a natural affinity for it pick it up with no problem while I struggled. After I blew out my knees as a teenager and had to give up on my dream of being a pitcher, I picked up my guitar and was that guy who had it with him constantly. I played 8-12 hours a day, every day, for years. I learned music theory, I studied nothing but music for years. At my very best I was passable for a low rent bar band. That's it. But it was a victory for me. In 7th grade I was in the church hand bell group. They threw me out because I had no sense of timing, couldn't read music, and no idea of music theory. All the other kids had those skills. Turns out I was the only one who ended up working as a musician.
Alt Focus: Math. That shit is the easiest thing in the world. It has rules, the rules are literally built into the fabric of the universe and never change, and the answer always follows the rules. It is so unwaveringly locked into its own rules that you can actually take an answer and use it to say that the question itself is wrong. Try doing that with your bullshit "what does Holden Caulfield mean when he says 'phonies'?" nonsense.
I couldn't fathom returning a sex toy so yes I did. It fit eventually and once. And you're the second person who's assumed that this issue of mine meant I don't know my directions. That's not based on numbers SIR. I live in a city that's mostly based on a grid and have to orient myself by the SW or NE or whatever corner EVERY DAY. Also I grew up as a hippie in the mountains and can tell my directions BY THE SUN.
Drawing. I absolutely cannot draw for shit. And I know what you're thinking, "Dude everyone wishes they can draw! Fuck you, get an adult coloring book." Yeah, no. I literally cannot draw a straight line. If I draw a stick figure, it looks like it has scoliosis. Bell peppers are more round than the circle abortions I try to make. If I was asked to draw a cross I'd have ISIS breathing down my neck for saying I was disrespecting jesus. Now granted, some of this has to do with the fact that I had to re-teach myself handwriting after my brain surgery, but even before then my drawing abilities were fucked so hard they had dicks flying out their mouth. In fact, the only thing I can draw somewhat decent is a dick. In the condensation on the shower door. By pressing my dick against it. My handwriting actually improved once I re-learned it. Now people can at least tell it's in a language of Germanic descent instead of chinese characters or hebrew or feces particles randomly strewn about a page. Public speaking. My degree is in it and I think it's not only easy, but fascinating and fun as hell. There are few things I love more than getting in front of a large room of people to do a presentation and really engaging the crowd, having them all listening and interacting with me, working every part of the room, having total mastery of my material (or sometimes just bullshitting my way through it and making shit up as I go -- no one can tell if you say it confidently). I compare the feeling I get when I'm speaking to a large group to when you're making love with someone, not having sex or fucking but passionate intimate love making, and both you and your partner get in the perfect sync where nothing else in the world matters. I simply don't understand what makes it difficult (or when people do explain to me why they're scared of it, I don't understand their reasoning), nor do I understand why people don't have the same passion for public speaking I do.
Focus: Some might say that I'm not the go-to guy for motor skills. Which is too bad, because a good part of my work consists of employing motor skills. While I struggled in the beginning, I'm now kinda ok through the power of failing so often that I usually get by finde. Being left handed didn't help either. Alt-focus: abstract thinking. While many of my friends struggled with physics and/or rotating something in your head, I can construct and turn almost everything in my head. Which is usually a relatively useless skill outside of physics class.