50 Per Cent Of All Weaknesses Are Mythical
By Dave Gilpin
All of us have been brought up to believe that our weaknesses far outweigh our strengths. Dave Gilpin investigates on behalf of men and discovers that 50% of all of the weaknesses men are conscious of are mythical…they don’t exist.
Men – it’s time to minimise the flab!
The key to releasing all of the potential that lies within a man is to maximise strengths and minimise weaknesses! The reason why most men grow a beer belly from an early age is because they are so intrinsically aware of an inner genius that they subconsciously do all they can to protect it from any possible damage. Men have been so successful at it that it passes from generation to generation without anyone ever realising it’s there. Until now! It’s time to reduce the metaphoric flab and let the genius shine through.
It’s true that if you simply minimise your weaknesses without maximising your strengths, the best you’ll ever become is average, quite boring and very, very beige. Out of all of the colours of the rainbow that God above created, there is one that He signed a disclaimer on. Beige. God hates beige. With the same line of thought He also hates Volvos. The logical conclusion of this is that out of all of the things that exist in the world today, the thing that God hates the most has to be people that drive beige Volvos. And that makes a lot of sense. If you actually own one, it would be well worth ditching it before the great departure. It must be a rare thing that anyone makes it into heaven clutching the key to a Volvo estate.
If, on the other hand, you simply maximise your strengths without minimising your weaknesses, you’ll be like a huge weightlifter who trips on the smallest of shoe laces. As a wise Iraqi midwife once said, ‘It’s not the grain of sand in a dune that slows a man down, it’s the grain of sand in the eye.’ And she knows a lot about sand.
Mythical weaknesses
If you were to count all of the weaknesses that you have operating in your life right now, fifty per cent of them simply don’t exist. They’re mythical. They only exist in the world of Harry Potter, but not in the real world. Those things we think are 'weaknesses' are in reality 'non strengths'. They're not weaknesses at all. It’s been indoctrinated into us from our earliest schooling that we’re, say, strong at adding up but 'weak' at spelling. We may have had a strength at memorising facts, but a huge ‘weakness’ for mathematic equations. If you went to a school anywhere north of The Antarctic, your school probably spent most of its time focussing on those ‘weaknesses’ than nurturing your brilliance. The truth is that spelling and maths may appear as a 'weakness' but only in the sense that Einstein was weak at volleyball. Volleyball wasn't a weakness to Einstein... he just didn't play it, didn't want to play it, had no dream of playing it and refused to sign up for it! Volleyball along with a few thousand other things could only be classed as a 'non strength'. Not a 'weakness'.
My son’s fascination with Riverdance at around the age of 6 led him to become a mini Michael Flateley in our lounge room. Not once did any of his report cards from school record his ‘feet of flames’ and the magic of this emerging brilliance. What we did get was the usual – ‘He fails to concentrate’, ‘He can’t spell’, 'He can't write' and the rest. Time has proven that his inabilities weren’t weaknesses at all. They were non-strengths. Sure, they need a little reinforcement, but they’re not weaknesses.
Uniquely Different
Pour yourself a ginger beer and allow me to pontificate. Have you ever seen or know a Hungarian, Bulgarian or Romanian winning the 100 metre final at the Olympic Games? The answer is – never. Their legs are too chunky! They’re too short and much too stocky. Those who do win are the usual suspects – Afro Americans and Afro Caribbeans! Is the lack of speed and dexterity of a Bulgarian (sure I generalise, but men don’t mind a few gross generalisations every now and then) a weakness or is it simply a ‘non strength’? Let’s now leave the stadium and head for the Olympic Weightlifting arena. It’s a completely different story. Medals are won by short, stocky tree trunks of men – it’s not a DNA disaster, it’s a record breaking gift of human design! It's time to celebrate our DNA - everyone is born with a touch of genious and it's up to us to find it!
No one is actually more talented or less talented than anyone else! It’s hard to believe it in the climate most men have had to endure. Everyone’s got talent – it’s just different talent for different things. The hugest of problems arise when there’s no one around to discover the true talents of an individual causing them to embarassingly enter stuff like the X Factor auditions when they can’t sing and definitely can’t dance.
True success comes from having a right value system, where to be brilliant with your hands which leads you to becoming a great cabinet maker has as much value as being brilliant with your feet which leads to the Premier league. I know, I know, I know. The wages don’t compare, but money isn’t everything. OK … money is something, but it’s still not everything. Personal fulfilment really does rate higher.
Strengths and non-strengths weighed up
It’s all exactly the same with the way that you’re wired. Just because you’re not the life and soul of the party doesn’t mean that there’s something wrong. Just because your office is a mess and your receipts are amassing in your top drawer (that’s if they make it there), doesn’t mean that your weak at organisational skills. It could mean that it’s a non strength. Your genius lies in getting ideas off the ground. Someone else can clean up after you! A completely different weakness arises though if you try too hard to be what you’re not! We all love funny people. Most men wish that they were funny. When a melancholic (thoughtful, analytical) person steps out and tries to be funny, it’s usually pretty embarrassing. It’s the same when a really funny person tries to be too deep for too long. It really doesn’t suit them!
A European Catholic was once asked to describe what heaven and hell were really like to an inquisitive Australian pagan. ‘Easy’ he replied. ‘Both heaven and hell are each like a restaurant. In heaven, the atmosphere is created by the Italians, the food is prepared by the French, the organising is down by the Germans and the hygiene is seen to by the British.’ ‘What about hell?’ he was asked. ‘In hell, however, the atmosphere is created by the Germans, the organising is done by the Italians, the food is prepared by the British and the hygiene is seen to by the French!’.
Dave Gilpin is the Senior Pastor of Hope City Church, which has congregations in Liverpool, Sheffield, Leeds and Newcastle. He also loves to be creative by whatever means - so if he's not painting under his "artist name" Dagarte - he's out filming some footage for his latest idea for a TV programme - or he may even be writing his next book... Whatever it is he'll be doing it with pizazz!