"Sometimes we forget ourselves, in the end..."

This is me not trusting a gnome that wandered into my backyard. Trespassing gnomes are a serious problem people! Look into it's eyes. Pure evil right there, and there's no denying it. Garden Gnome Evil: it's the worst kind of evil in the world. Gnomes have hearts of absolute blackness - there's no shred of goodness in them.

Oh, I'm back at my dad's house, so here's today's fortune:

And I guess the way that I want to take this is that you should focus on your strengths rather than your flaws, and I think that's actually very good advice nowadays where size and smarts and suave are so important to society. A brilliant man once told me, "The world just needs smart people doing smart things. It doesn't matter what you are or how good you are at it - all that matters is that you're doing it. " And I really think it's an important lesson in a society where everything we do is defined by the deeds of others. It's hard too, focusing on your strengths and gifts rather than your weaknesses...
I aid the confirmation class at my temple and we recently proposed an exercise to the kids in the class:

"Close your eyes and inflect. Try to think of as many of your gifts as you can. Not superficial gifts, but real gifts, raw talents, strong attributes. Try to think of six good things your best friend would say about you, no kidding. When you're done, write them all down."

It's hard, isn't it? I had kids ask several times if they could just list everything they wanted to improve on, all their bad traits - "It's so much easier to list all the things I don't like about myself". We live in a society that's all about being better, always forward, all go, go, go. Never stop, never think, never be happy with who you are right now, because you can always be better...
Maybe that's not the point though. Maybe life isn't about being better, about improving every little bad thing we see in ourselves, maybe it's just about being happy with who you are? But that's heresy, of course. Who could ever be happy until they're size 0, gorgeous, have an IQ of 240, and have all the respective prospective mates fawning over their sexy genius-ness. I kid, of course, that's ridiculous, preposterous, outrageous, and heck, just downright stupid.

Why shouldn't we be happy with the exact person we are at any given moment? Why should we care about our faults instead of enjoying our strengths? Screw society, you're perfect at exactly what you do, because you're the best damn person for the job.

That being said, I've noticed over time that the same traits I begrudge in myself I now detest in others...I guess it's almost a double standard, maybe a little hypocritical, but whenever I see someone who's stubborn, loud, presumptuous, talkative, impulsive, fat, lazy, etc. (The list went on for a while, actually, but I cut it short...it's those damn limitations overshadowing my talents again)...I guess part of it is that I don't want people to make the same mistakes I make, but then, the best way to teach the world is to first teach yourself. As Gandhi put it, "You must be the change you wish to see in the world. "
But ah, changing is so hard...

Still, we should try to care less about the shortcomings in our life. Yes, working to better yourself is a good thing: I don't want to seem like I'm saying that it's not, but maybe we care too much. Maybe we should focus on being the best at the things we're best at. But then, I don't, so I guess I have a lesson to learn before I try to teach the world...