As he watches me dance, there is a look on his face. Impressed, a look of knowing and a nod of, “You were actually serious about it”. It is unbelievable how another thing comes so easy to her. At this point my dancing was just a running joke, something never witnessed yet it ran half of our conversations. I came off as intelligent, uptight yet creative and emotionally sensitive but the dancing we found funny. This is someone who saw me for all I was and was neither intimidated by any part of who I was nor tried to shrink me, but showed me how I could manage being multifaceted so that it worked to my advantage.
“So, what do you do?” We have all been asked this question at some point in our lives. How do you answer this question without seemingly giving a long list or looking like you are bragging as you list them? Or how many seconds do you have until you give the right answer?
One time in a trivia, I solved an algebraic math problem in under 30 seconds. Everyone was stunned. Was it because I did it mentally or was it because I did it fast? I didn’t know but there was nothing special about it. It was just that simple. Then came the question, “What do you do?” I froze! There was no answer I would have said that would feel satisfying to me. I do not recall what I said but it certainly wasn’t satisfying because it left me embarrassed. Should I have said what I studied for, what I did for work, what I did as a side hustle, where my heart is – but where is my heart anyway?
When I was young, my mother always took us to church on Sundays. As usual the kids were encouraged to memorize bible verses. (I still do not understand the purpose of this because overtime Bible has been within reach to everyone in different languages and easily accessible on the internet) So, when I first got my tiny New Testament Bible I decided to do it. I tried memorizing a verse, it felt incomplete. Then I did the whole chapter, “I will look up unto the hills, from where does my help come from…” and when Sunday came, I recited the whole chapter in front of the whole congregation, people were cheering and I was unsure why. Was I impressive? Or was it because I was young? At the time, I was about 6 years old.
Then it came to school, I always got presents every time we did an exam, I don’t remember doing too much but it seemed to impress the adults and some peers who had already discovered how this thing goes. At a point a classmate came early to school, took our exam papers from the teacher’s desk, changed my name on my paper to his and put my name on his paper. When the teacher asked why I hadn’t answered a question is where we discovered that my paper had been switched, so I looked for mine and switched it back.
Anyway, here I am now. Discovering myself as a polymath. People thought it was easy when they said, “pick one thing, specialize and run with it”. For me it meant abandoning everything else I knew and fighting the urge to solve an issue that I clearly see how it can be solved. But do I need to do that? This always left me demotivated because it seemed like I had nothing to offer. Fine, I could do a ton of things, but who am I? I am not a dancer, I am not a chef, I am not a writer, I am not a musician, yet I could do all that. Why am I unable to just focus on one thing? Or why did I need to focus only on one thing, if I could do all these and excel at them?
This was a thing a struggled with until I met someone who was fascinated by all these. He would even put me to test to figure out what more I was capable of. For the first time I was seen. One though, he also so funny. I am not funny. Sometimes I say things without the intention of being funny but it makes people laugh, maybe at me or with me. Anyway, this one saw my ability to do everything, something that I knew deep down but always fought myself to find one thing to focus on and make a mastery of it, but instead he opened the field for me to be everything I am and more. He let me know that being myself was something to be proud of and not hide it away. And when he saw me dance, he was proud because it was one more thing I did effortlessly.
My point is, you might find yourself as a “know it all