According to this survey, the Brief Strengths Test, my top strength is perspective or wisdom; my worst scores were in hope and religiousness or spirituality. In addition to wisdom, humor, fairness, and open-mindedness were where I scored the highest. I am struggling with making sense of these amorphous data points but here are my preliminary results.
My largest takeaway from this questionnaire is that I need to improve my capacity for my optimism could be improved. I am not entirely hopeless, but I do struggle to internalize a philosophy of hopeful optimism with regard to my own life. That said, with others, when I speak to them or give advice, I do exhibit hope (albeit tempered by my trademark realism). I do not think that this is unusual. It is much more difficult to see the larger picture of your own life than it is in others people’s lives. When I get too in my own head, I try to take a step back and evaluate what is actually happening and what I may be catastrophizing. This is a practice that I am not sure is ever perfected but certainly, I see myself making progress. In addition to this internal process, surrounding myself with people who hold me accountable for this task is very helpful.
With regard to religiousness and spirituality, I do not particularly care that I scored low. In my opinion, religion can be a beautiful way to form a community through common values. In addition, organized religion can be a place to practice those values like charity. I was raised more or less Catholic but I do not practice most of the rituals associated with Catholicism. However, I do feel tied to the values of charity, inclusivity, kindness, and reflection that are espoused in Christian literature and in the literature of many other organized religions. In particular, I am fulfilled by doing service work. On campus, I have begun working with the Wesleyan Service Dogs Club to help train dogs to become service dogs for veterans with PTSD and other debilitating conditions. Working alongside other students and community members in this organization brings me peace that could be described as spiritual.
As I continue through this course and move into the next semester, I would like to return to this inventory periodically to assess my improvement across these areas. In addition, I am going to continue considering the ways in which my activities, schoolwork, extracurriculars, internships, etc., might utilize these strengths most effectively.
