Daniel A. Bochner, Ph.D.

To find out what your greatest strength might be, maybe you need only look at your greatest weakness. I know that sounds weird, but it's generally true. Those people you admire most are typically driven by what bothers them most. Doctors and lawyers, CEOs and presidents, priests and rabbis, animal rights activists and veterinarians, all find their strength in the things that bother them most about themselves and/or about the world. So, when you're thinking most about your suffering, or when your self-esteem is at its lowest, try to think about how your accomplishments are inextricably connected to the way you're feeling now.

How could this strange phenomenon possibly be true? It's really a very simple process. Successful people are often attempting to overcome the feeling that represents the opposite of their success. Wealthy people are often trying to overcome the feelings engendered within them as impoverished children. People in charge often have felt others trying to control them. Individuals with great intellectual accomplishments are often proving their intelligence. Sports stars, actors and actresses, and musical artists, are often looking for special attention to counter a feeling that they are far too ordinary. In addition to being spiritually minded, clergy members are all too often beset by tremendous guilt and have a need to take responsibility in order to appease that guilt.

Although our successes and weaknesses are invariably connected, that connection should in no way diminish our accomplishments. If you were to start talking to your physician and he told you about how he felt foolish when his father challenged him as a boy, would you feel he was any less intelligent? If a member of clergy discussed with her congregation the oppressive guilt she felt having observed her younger sister being maimed in some terrible way, would she be any less moral or giving? Likewise, if you are proud of something you have accomplished, even if there is a reason for the accomplishment in your past, it should in no way diminish your efforts or the accomplishment itself.

The fact of the matter is, when we fight to overcome something due to the pain it has caused us, we work very, very hard. Typically, if you are to observe the great accomplishments of society...

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