Anti-Self-Deprecation, More or Less

Can’t write the post I actually want to write because it contains too much sensitive information. Then I finally wrote around it only for WordPress to delete my draft. Not re-writing it.

Anyway, it’s been a mix of good and not-so-good lately. I can’t get into the detail. Dumb as this sounds, I could use the confidence boost so I’m listing a few more things I’m good at. Similar to The Anti-Self-Deprecation Challenge, feel free to play along at home or in the comments here.

I Have a Good Haftarah Chanting Voice

This is one of those talents that no one actually cares about except small desperate egalitarian congregations, but it still counts. Truthfully, I don’t consider myself a singer. I’ve flubbed too many auditions and gotten too much feedback like “you’re only in this a cappella group because we desperately needed altos – if we’d had auditions, you wouldn’t have gotten in” to delude myself. I’m not tone-deaf and I have enough experience at karaoke that I’ll sound a hell of lot better than the average drunk person picking up a microphone for the first time. But I don’t consider myself a singer.

That said, I have a really beautiful voice for chanting Haftarah. It’s the kind of voice you’ll look up and pay attention to. Multiple professionally trained singers have told me that my reading of Jonah is a highlight of their Yom Kippur [and not only because they don’t want to want to have to get stuck doing it themselves late on a fast day].

Update: I just realized that this is kind of a repeat of one of the things I already mentioned from the earlier challenge. It’s not easy thinking of things one is good at!

I’m Good At Convincing People I Am Good At My Job

Truth be told, I am actually not all that good at my job, which for anonymity reasons, I will not tell you what it is. It does not play to any of my natural talents. If anything, it plays to my weaknesses.

However, I am good at convincing people that I am good at my job by writing up my experience into an attractive resume and LinkedIn profile that makes me look 2 years younger and gets me attention from recruiters and interviews. Then I tend to interview well. Not always, and I’ve bombed plenty of interviews. But overall, I interview well. And then when I am in this job that I am not actually good at, I am good at talking to people as if I am good at it.

I Am A Good Writer

I hate this statement. It’s the kind of statement where you just know that the person saying it sucks because a good writer doesn’t need to say “I’m a good writer” – he/she will just show you with actual good writing.

But you know what? My poetry, though unpublished because I haven’t pursued where to publish and the whole submission process, is rather good. My parody lyrics are clever. I’ve written a few chapters of a novel, and even though I historically have not written fiction, thus far I’ve successfully written:

• Multiple characters who are not me
• Dialogue
• Multiple conflicts, without a giant slab of expository backstory text
• Humor

It is true that my novel has many issues, including, but not limited to, wrong point of view selection, massive plot holes, and the entire premise of the novel is flawed, unoriginal, and stupid, actually. But the scenes I’ve written are in fact, well-written scenes. Well-written scenes with nowhere to go, but that counts. I’ll own that remarkably stupid headline statement.

Alright, enough anti-self-deprecation for a Monday. Your turn. Put yours in the comments or on your own blog with a link back.