a) It is difficult for a person to have a complete knowledge of himself. A person’s identity is made up of various values and experiences that cannot be summed up in a few sentences. I have had considerable difficulty these past few weeks trying to answer the general question, “Tell me about yourself,” that college interviewers so often pose. Thus, the most practical application of the phrase “Know thyself” is to be aware of one’s own specific strengths and weaknesses.
It is easy to illustrate the advantages of knowing one’s own strengths. By their senior year, most high school students will have discovered—through taking a diverse set of courses—which academic subjects they are strongest in. It makes sense that high school students who are most interested and proficient in math and science will contribute most to the world by pursuing STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) careers, while other students better at history and language arts would have greater success studying the humanities. Understanding one’s own academic strengths can lead to a more comfortable and productive life in the future.
It is equally as important for one to be aware of one’s own weaknesses, and to purposely avoid situations in which those weaknesses may cause harm. Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet shows how knowing one’s own weaknesses can keep one out of trouble by demonstrating what happens when people do not know their own weaknesses. In the play, characters such as Romeo, Mercutio and Tybalt are violent and rash by nature, as established through various details—for example, Romeo’s fickle love interest and Mercutio’s bizarre spoken lines. The characters are not aware of their propensities for violence, but rush into confrontational situations that ultimately result in their deaths. We, as the audience, cannot say how the play would have ended if the characters were more aware of their own violence. But it is tempting to imagine that if Romeo, Tybalt and Mercutio understood their tendencies to fight, they may have avoided confrontation altogether and lived longer, more fulfilling lives.
b) My greatest weakness in school is procrastination. To illustrate: during my sophomore year in high school, I worked on a science project involving Baker's yeast. I had two months to work on this project. I did not save everything for the last minute—I finished the experimental portion of the project about a month before I was scheduled to present. However, I also needed to analyze the data using statistical analysis techniques (which I did not know how to use), make a PowerPoint presentation, and create a poster board display. My error was in waiting until the night before my presentation to even begin the data analysis. To make things worse, I watched videos on Hulu.com until 9:00 pm before opening the Excel file containing my data. I did not finish the data analysis and PowerPoint work until well past midnight, and then I had to print, cut, and glue pictures and text blurbs onto my poster board. I ended up pulling what is colloquially known as an "all-nighter". For those of you who have never stayed up all night working on an assignment: it is not an enjoyable experience. I felt terrible presenting my project the next day and embarrassed myself in front of the entire class by forgetting to mention important parts of my research. Obviously, this episode was not the first time I procrastinated, but my “all-nighter” experience is my most unpleasant memory associated with procrastination.
I have tried many times to fix my procrastination problem without real success. At one point in my high school career, I deleted my Facebook account because I wasted a lot of time chatting with friends on the Internet. However, I ended up finding an excuse to reactivate my Facebook (I had no other way to ask a friend when an essay was due). I also tried to get into the habit of starting homework the moment I get home from school, but frequent snack breaks and ever-present distractions foiled my efforts at industry.
I realize that my procrastination is going to be a very serious problem in college, where I would have more flexibility to manage my own time and even more distractions to deal with. By now, I have identified this personal weakness that I need to address and hopefully remedy by the end of high school. I will not stop trying to end my procrastination problem. Maybe I need to shut myself in a computer-free room with only a desk, a lamp, and a textbook. Or perhaps I need to go to a library immediately after school to minimize distractions. No matter what method I use to stop procrastinating, my efforts to improve would not exist if I were not aware of my weakness.
c) I consider my easy-going nature to be a positive quality, although my relaxed nature may be responsible for my procrastination. I rarely stress about anything. Although pulling an “all-nighter” on a science project was unpleasant, at no point was I worried that I would not complete the assignment. I rarely worry about exams the way many of my peers do, whether I expect to do well on the tests or not. Stressing before a test does not help test performance, and I find that my laid-back nature allows me to do my best work under the circumstances.
My relaxed nature allows me to work well with other people. I really enjoy doing group projects. I can usually contribute by reassuring fellow group members when they begin to worry about deadlines, or by calmly settling disagreements that spawn from the stress of the work.
I am also very relaxed socially. We have all undoubtedly seen the “bar fight” scene in movies, when one man insults another man and smashed beer bottles become melee weapons. While I am firm about my values, I am slow to anger. If I were in a confrontational situation in a bar, I would look my adversary in the eye and walk away like a real man. In a sense, I am the opposite of the teenagers in Romeo and Juliet. I think about the consequences before I let my passions guide me in doing something foolish.
d) I feel that objectively reflecting on one’s own strengths and weaknesses is difficult because one’s pride often blurs one’s self-examination. Personal experiences related to one’s particular weakness may be embarrassing or painful. Interestingly, one’s own psyche can distort such emotional memory. Furthermore, recalling such episodes in one’s life may elicit emotions that further muddle one’s attempt at objectively writing about one’s weakness. Something similar occurs with strengths. Instead of unpleasant emotion, pride may embellish memories of times when one displayed one’s strengths.
I certainly do not like talking about myself, especially about my strengths and weaknesses. In fact, the strengths and weaknesses I talked about here are not my “greatest” strengths and weaknesses, though they would probably come in second in each category. I do not feel comfortable talking about what I consider to be my greatest strength, and if I tried to write about my greatest weakness I may just end up sobbing over the keyboard and never finishing this blog. I understand the importance of knowing—and dealing with—my true weakness. But this weakness is something that I have to overcome by myself, without the sympathy of the entire Internet.
