Generally, something that is underrated is playing to your strengths. People are constantly told to better their weaknesses, but some weaknesses are deeply entwined with strengths, or are otherwise not the most leveraged use of one’s effort.
In this post, I want to argue that focusing on weaknesses rather than strengths may prevent gains from cooperation, wastes effort, and is otherwise frustrating.
One idea that’s come back into the popular consciousness is that people want to grow their own food. As many who start gardens soon discover, gardening is hard, and many people are awful at it. Rather than this being a reason to fret, this should be one to celebrate. After all, if one has a higher affinity with tinkering, why would they focus on gardening? Part of being a craftsman is finding out the narrow domain you want to focus on. In order to become world class, one must shed that which is irrelevant.
One potential objection that may froth to the surface is ‘what if I’m good at nothing’. Never fear! Even if you aren’t the best at any one thing, it’s entirely possible for you to benefit from cooperation, and comparative advantage. Take a secretary (male) and a lawyer (female). The lawyer may be superior in both better at typing and lawyering than the secretary. However, this doesn’t mean the he does nothing. Instead, she may pay him to do typing, because she can more effectively turn time into value by lawyering rather than typing. Being comparatively better (the secretary sacrificing 0 lawyering for 4 typing, rather than 5 lawyering for 5 typing) requires no specific skill, but instead increasing the effectiveness of those around you.
The other, and perhaps more metaphysically challenging part of focusing on weaknesses is that weaknesses and strengths are often deeply intertwined. Being great at writing may be because of a hatred of math. Excellent social skills undermine the need to be good at coding. The great thing about modernity is that it doesn’t expect people to be good at everything. Instead, it allows people to specialize in things they enjoy, that they’re naturally good at. Focusing on weaknesses, rather than strengths inverts what makes people powerful, and prevents them from finding joy.
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