Know myself

The priest asked me today..."If I were to ask you to name 3 good qualities about yourself, what would they be?" It took me lots of "Err... Ah.... Eee" before I could muster up my first quality. And it turned out that it wasn't a quality, that what I have said did not count as a good quality. In a nutshell, I was unable to name, on the spot, even one good quality about myself. If it were to be a job interview, I would have failed MISERABLY.

The take-home message from Father to me was "Know myself. Don't let me be a stumbling block to myself.. Be thankful for what I AM." 

It seems I have plenty of self- reflection and soul- searching to do.


In the end, Father had to name one good quality OF ME. LOL..And he said "Intelligence". From his point of view, that is one good quality of me. He was surprised I didn't say that. When he mentioned that, I was surprised at myself for not thinking about that. I think that I have taken lots of things for granted. I have taken my own intelligence for granted, all my good qualities for granted when I should be thankful for them. So I thought long and hard (well, not that long and hard actually) and came up with these. The pathetic thing is that I couldn't think of anything else to add in.. :( Are these my only good qualities?

MY GOOD QUALITIES:-

INTELLIGENCE

DILIGENCE

DOWN-TO-EARTH

RECEPTIVE AND OPEN-MINDED

EAGERNESS AND WILLINGNESS TO LEARN

RATIONAL

TIDY AND SYSTEMATIC

LEADERSHIP SKILLS

ABILITY TO BE A TEAM PLAYER

LOYALTY

I was also advised to dwell on the positive emotions. One good and bad thing about me is that I am too aware of my negative feelings that I tend to dwell on them. For example, when I am jealous or envious or disrespectful, I am aware of those feelings when I am feeling it. I am aware that what I am feeling is a negative feeling. So, in the end, I end up dwelling on that, beating myself about the fact that I am such a terrible person for being jealous, envious, disrespectful etc etc. In a way, my OVER-AWARENESS of my own emotions, which is supposed to be a good thing, turns out making things worse. 

That is why I have to KNOW MYSELF. Know that I am not a terrible person. That I am a person with all the good qualities above and dwell on them instead. Focus on the positive emotions. And I still have time to do that because as a person gets older, it becomes harder to change. If you are always an angry person and continues to focus on that, you will of course, continue to be this angry person and even your face changes and takes on an angry expression. So that negative emotion will consume you. And then people don't like you, you sink into depression etc etc...

Father mentioned stuff like cortisol, hippocampus, memory loss, emotions....I was impressed by him, by what a priest actually knows. Within that few minutes, he has touched on anatomy, physiology and some aspects of psychology and psychiatry, not to mention spirituality. WOW! No wonder priests have to study for 7 years.