Strength or Weakness?

I have always disliked the question "What are your strengths and weaknesses?" as it ignores a fundamental truth: strength and weakness are two sides of the same coin. It fails to capture the interplay between light and shadow within each individual, how they are created and how they manifest.

How does strength grow within a person? Friedrich Nietzsche once said, "That which does not kill us makes us stronger." Like thick skin of scar tissue forming after an injury, we develop our strengths after being exposed to the harshness of this world. It is often within our childhood, when we are vulnerable, that we create coping mechanisms to guard us like a shell. Resilience and adaptability might hide a past of bullying. A woman who is admired for her independence might be coming from a past of neglect. A man with great self-awareness might be hiding past trauma of continuous criticism. And even though the strength is there, the trigger of that root cause never quite leaves one's psyche.

That question about strengths and weaknesses also fails to consider that the same desired attribute is problematic in some situations, and a perceived weakness at the time might turn out to be a necessity under different conditions. Perfectionism can be great for productivity due to attention to detail, but also destructive if one is unable to delegate and release control. Oversensitivity, as a weakness, might lead to negative feelings through criticism but it can also lead to great ability for connection or artistic creation.

Our greatest strengths can become our greatest liabilities without self-awareness. As Rumi once said, "The wound is the place where the Light enters you." It is a beautiful concept that describes that without our wounds and trauma, the light is not able to touch us. Then we can study Leonard Cohen who phrased it as "There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in". As an exercise of self-awareness, one can start by identifying the light and our strong qualities and see what cracks that light gets through. These cracks are potential weaknesses that we are not aware and we are covering up by focusing on the strength only. Remember, the coin always has two sides and the recognition of that duality holds the true power.