SnappedShots: Flaw Flogging

March 9, 2005: Flaw Flogging

It’s painful to look at yourself and name your flaws. I never liked, in an interview, answering the question what is your biggest flaw or weakness. So this does not come naturally. Still, here I go.

I rarely finish the things I start. If I’m not immediately good at something I rarely persevere. And even the things I’m good at, I will often not finish.

I don’t like admitting my flaws. I don’t like appearing imperfect. I need to be perfect. I need to be the best. It’s a silly troublesome characteristic and I’d like to laugh it off but it’s probably true. I need to be the best. I also realize that there’s very little at which I can honestly say I am the best but there it is.

I am almost always five to seven minutes late. I would never admit it, except for here, except for now, but I’m probably a little arrogant. I have a competency superiority complex. My indignation at spelling mistakes, at people who say “irregardless”, at people at work, formerly, who wanted help with their computers is part of this arrogance.

I am remarkably embarrassed about the things I don’t know including sports scores, current events, and politics.

I mock families, but I’m secretly and wretchedly envious. I take an awful lot too personally while pretending not to. I’m addicted to cigarettes.

I’d much rather fall in love than be in love. While I’ve always acted like I need to be a writer it just might be that I’m too scared to try and definitely too scared to fail. Of course that means I fail anyway.

When I have too much to do, I won’t do anything. I have unrealistic expectations of myself, and by extension, of other people.

I don’t think I expect success. I’d like to say that I do, that I do expect success. But when it comes right down to it, I’m not sure that I expect success. That’s a hard one. We get what we expect. A person is rarely surprised by the way things go.

Where life is a strange dog, I’d likelier expect it to bite me than lick me. In fact I might even prefer it, as it turns out; so I can walk around and show people the bite marks that little scamp had left and say, “See? See?”

Probably more than anything else, I

It’s been awfully lonely, lynn. With a couple of important and notable exceptions, I feel a little as if I’ve been screaming into the wind. The wind might listen and might even care. But it can give back only what it’s already giving. And since one flaw I neglected to point out, my need for attention, compels me, it’s brilliant to hear back from more than just the wind, especially you, who puts everything so nicely. Thank you. I thought perhaps this had turned into the soliloquy part of the program. Or maybe life, besides a biting scamp of a dog is all a solioquy. Sometimes, more than others, we are more overheard. A master at the positive negative, I’m sure the interview went gorgeously.

Posted by: ss at March 9, 2005 6:02 PM

i was obliged to do exactly this during a job interview yesterday. and here - and only here -is my confession: i have perfected the art of the positive negative. i am too much of a perfectionist. i am too sensitive. i am so convinced of the necessity of continuity that i find it difficult to delegate. these are the traits i proffered. yours ALL sparked recognition…except one. i am ALWAYS five to seven minutes early. super post..

Posted by: lynn at March 9, 2005 5:04 PM