Strength of Weakness

Have you ever experienced a brain freeze? No, I am not talking about the one induced by an extremely chilled drink or an ice cream.  I am talking about the mind numbing experience induced by a seemingly simple question like “What are your strengths and weaknesses”? 

Out of the many stereotypical questions we face in a job interview, this has to be the one of most annoying. Somehow this question always manages to flick off a switch to the part of our head where we have stored some carefully chosen adjectives. No matter, how well prepared we may be, somehow a question about strength and weakness is one of the biggest weakness for many. 

Even if we manage to pull out some of those adjectives and call it our strength, it’s the search for our weakness that invariably pins us down. Our frozen brain tries to go into an overdrive to list some weakness that sounds more like strength. After all, we don’t want to declare our strong weaknesses to a prospective employer. This internal turmoil invariably gives that dumb embarrassed expression to our face which leads to an even more annoying follow up response from the interviewer. 

“You mean to say, you don’t have any weaknesses?” 

Is it a weakness not to know our weakness? Is it not enough to know our strength alone? Or can our weakness actually be our strength? 

Humans, like everything else in this world, are not perfect. In fact, it is the imperfections in us that make us unique and it is this uniqueness that we call our strength. More often than not, we need some of the weakness to bring out our inner strength. Fear is an apparent weakness that triggers the all-important instinct, fight or flight. Being fearless might sound heroic but in the natural world, it is sheer stupid.   

As a natural instinct we are designed to use our strengths to survive and succeed. Not so much to analyze the cause of failure. After a certain point in time, it makes more sense to work on our strengths and improve them further than correcting our so called perceived “weaknesses”. More often than not, our strength is in having those weaknesses.  

“Never fear shadows. They only mean that there is a light shining somewhere nearby”.  

Don’t fret about your weaknesses. Let them be. Trying to correct all of them  might be futile too. So the next time when you struggle to list your weaknesses don’t feel bad. The interviewer might not know that your strong point is your 'Strength of Weakness'.