When You Feel Like You Want *Their* Great Skills, While Forgetting Your Own Great Skills (nunchuck skillz...computer hacking skillz...)

It’s easy for us to compare ourselves with other people, isn’t it? Yeah, I think it is. And I wonder if what I’m going to say here will be edifying to anyone who reads this. I’m going to say it anyway, in case it does come across as helpful.

I’ve been a “yuppy” for a long time (I think “yuppie” is how you’re supposed to spell it, but “yuppy” looks better to me because “puppy” is a word and “puppie” isn’t). For those of you who don’t already know, the word “yup” is an acronym for “young urban professional(s).” Well, it means “yes” too, but in this case, please think of it as the acronym. And also please think of it as somewhat a term of endearment, or at least as something with a positive connotation, because even if it may sound like I’m calling my friends mean names, I’m really not. To be a yup is a good thing.

All my yuppy friends range from being anything from pilots to party planners to professors. They each have their own distinct occupation. I have mine. I love mine. I love the things I know and know how to do in order to succeed at my job. But sometimes I catch myself looking at all my yuppy friends and wishing I knew what they know, and longing to know how to do the things they know how to do.

For example, I have boatloads of lawyer friends and schoolteacher friends. Sometimes when we’re socializing together, and I hear them introduce themselves to people who don’t know them and don’t yet know what they do for a living, I’ll hear them explain their livelihoods, and for some funny reason it almost makes me want to say “I’d give my arm and leg to be a lawyer or schoolteacher!” because their jobs sound so rewarding, and those are the types of jobs that, to me, seem so elite in their own elements. Personally, I feel like it takes really special types of people to be downright decent lawyers and teachers of integrity, like my friends are, and whenever I gander at people like that, I’m kind of in awe, and I think, Wouldn’t it be nice if I could be just like them?

I also think it would be awesome to know how to be a great graphic designer, museum curator, whale trainer (yes, that was my dream as a child), actor, or astronaut. I don’t know how to be excellent at any of these careers that I’ve mentioned. But even though I think it would be “nice” if I did know how to be any or all of those things… If I did know how to be all that, honest-to-goodness that would mean I would have to actually practice and keep practicing all those things so that I could stay sharp-as-a-tack in all those professional fields.

Ain’t nobody got time for dat. Not in this mortal life, anyway. Maybe in the eternities.

Why, if we knew how to be all those things (all the things that we daydream about someday becoming amazing at), and if we somehow had the time to practice all those things, we wouldn’t have time during our days to sleep, drink, shower, eat food, or have hobbies. The only phrase we would ever want to utter is “please lead me to the nearest guillotine.”

My current opinion is that it’s important to remember that we each have something that we’re quite good at. More like somethings. Chances are that every one of us has probably more than one valuable skill that somebody else we know wishes they had, every time they look at us. The valuable skills I’m talking about can be both vocational and interpersonal.

The reason why I think this is because I’ve told people before that I’ve noticed fabulously kind and exceptional traits about them, and then I’ve turned around and attempted to develop those traits, because I think they’re all-round stupendous traits for any human being to have. This is largely why I try to be better today than I was yesterday: because there’s some role model whom I look up to, whose footsteps in which I’d like to follow. After all, that’s the reason why we have each other as loved ones: so that we can help each other to positively grow and become better.

So those were the interpersonal skills that I wrote about in that paragraph you just read. Now, back to the vocational ones for a moment.

Whenever I start down that road again, about how I wish I could know and do what a lawyer or schoolteacher knows and does…and thus mentally walking towards a place where I don’t think I have all too many skills and services to offer, simply because I’m not a lawyer or teacher like them…I snap out of it!! And I begin remembering all the times when someone asked me to help them learn something particular, because they knew I was the best person they could think of who could help them.

I’ll never forget the day when I heard musical notes floating out of an open door, and I casually walked into that room because I was curious, and lo and behold I found a friend of mine perched on a piano bench, plunking out a hymn from the hymnal. I had just come in to say hi, but he humbly asked me if I would be so kind as to help him learn to not only play the song, but to read music in general. To paraphrase, he said it was serendipitous that it was I who walked in, because he knew that I was someone who could assist him. I sat down next to him, and it turned out to be a terrific music lesson.

I remember that that is not the only experience I’ve had in my life where someone sought my expertise. And I bet that all of us have had experiences like that. It’s those moments that tickle me pink in a humble sort of way, because I’m like, Really? You’re asking me to mentor you? I dunno, it’s just kinda touching when you are the person that someone else is looking up to, and turning to for guidance.

Anyway, so all I’m really trying to say here is that every one of you—every one of us—has commendable skills and gifts that are positively helpful to other people. Everyone has a magnificent intelligence and spirit that is capable of learning, growing, and developing traits that can benefit the world. The key is keep on keepin’ on, to remember that we all are full of infinite worth, to be patient in learning, to be excited about learning, to be cheerfully productive, to be continually striving to nurture the brightly wonderful human characteristics that we find in others, and if we do all of this, I’m pretty sure we’ll be able to recognize the goodness and greatness that we contribute to the earth and to mankind.

Kind of reminds me of that Andy Grammer song… “you gotta keep your head up, oooohhhh, and you can let your hair down, eeeehhhh.” That’s a good one.