Respose to Freak Factor

Freak Factor by David Rendall

The main point of David Rendalls manifesto is that everyone is a “freak”.  Basically, we all have strengths and weaknesses that make us different from everyone else, but we shouldn’t try to fix our weaknesses, we should try to build off our strengths.  And even then, sometimes, a weakness can just be a strength that hasn’t been given the opportunity to shine.

One of the things David lists that I like is the 5^th item in the manifesto “Foundation: Build on your Strengths”.   The main idea of this is that we should build up the strengths we have.  One, because we enjoy doing this we are “strong’ at and if we increase our strengths we can make up for weaknesses.  I just really like this idea, because it’s something I’ve been thinking about recently.  I know I’ve got a lot of weaknesses and I ‘ve been wondering what to do about all of them and if I should try to fix them in hopes of improving my chances of getting a job later in life, but this made me rethink things.  Maybe I should just focus on becoming the best at what I can do right now.  Maybe I shouldn’t worry about something that I don’t like doing in the small hope that it will help me later when the stress it could cause me now could have a bigger negative impact than not doing It at all.

Another one of the parts of David’s manifesto that I liked was the 5^th item in the manifesto “Focus: you can’t do both”.  This is mainly because this is of what I talked about in the last bit, focusing on multiple things can be stressful, and if one of those multiple things is also something you’re not good at it’s even worse.  Some may think that it’s better to be a jack of all trades so you can do anything you want, but unless you are superhuman, you are not going to be exceptional at what you do, I would guess average at best.  Like I said before, recently I had been thinking that maybe it would be better to be a jack of all trades, but before that I had always tried to do something one step at a time.  I liked to focus on one thing and get really good at that.

 I think the one piece from the manifesto that I like the most was the 3^rd one “Flawless: there’s nothing wrong with you”.  I just like the concept that for every weakness someone has, they also have a corresponding strength.  And, after reading it, I have to think that David is right.  Having given it a bit of though, most the parallels he lists makes perfect sense and some even fit me perfectly.  For example, one he lists is the strength of being reflective, but the weakness of being shy.  I’m honestly a bit more than shy, I’m terrified of social interaction so much I think a may actually have a phobia, but I’m also very inward thinking and I always go over past events in my head.

When it comes to my own weaknesses and strengths, I like to think I’m a very creative person, and while I like to be organized, things usually don’t end up that way for me.  I also a very humble person who downplays basically everything I do.  I don’t like having other people look over my stuff.  Honestly I probably shouldn’t mind this because I’m actually more critical of myself than other people are, but I think that it’s linked to my fear of social interaction so there isn’t much I can do about it.