The Greatest Gift

There are things that we do well. And then, there are things we don’t do so well. No shame in that. But, what a tragedy it is, to not do well the things we know how to do well!

At what point does a human being of more than average competence in a particular discipline begin to lack the confidence to believe that she or he can do something with more than average quality? What are the triggers for such mental retrogression, as it were?

A friend of mine, who used to write software for rocket control at NASA at an earlier time in his life, once shared a piece of information that got me thinking. Basically, he said he could not bear to watch movies.

- "And, why not?"
- “The tension gets to me”, he said. “The suspense. Can’t take uncertainty anymore!”

For a moment I thought he was kidding. It slowly dawned on me that he wasn’t. He had spent several years in a high stakes, high pressure environment, fraught with the very real risk of millions of dollars worth of equipment going awry because of one small mistake in code. The stuff gave him nightmares, and he had taken just about all the tension he could, to last a lifetime.

Sometimes, all it takes for us to not execute, is fear of failure. Sometimes we let momentary failings so affect us, that the fear of a lackluster performance keeps us from performing at all.

I guess we all have our bad days. I know I do. I hope and pray that, at the end of those days, I will always have the courage to return to being the person who I am.

To me, that is the greatest gift I could give myself.

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