Being deaf

Living life half-deaf has been both, a curse and a blessing.

Imagine not ever knowing with certainty what is being said or, perhaps worse, not even knowing who it is being said to. Every sound requires that you consciously pause what you are doing, concentrate, and take your best educated guess as to what it is. Context is so critical to your guessing that tracking multiple conversations in a social setting is like running a marathon while juggling flaming torches and dodging angry pitbulls. You live in constant fear of realizing you guessed wrong and are having a completely different conversation than you thought… at times with significant consequences.

The very silence I hate is the source of many of my strengths. I am able to concentrate with ease and see details many miss. I can see meaningful patterns emerge exactly because I can’t see the full picture. I have to focus on the single source of sound, which means I have spent my life focusing on seeing the person in front of me and not seeing past or through them. I savor every bit of the world I experience much more because I know there are parts of it I never will.

Life can be hard and the burdens we carry can be overwhelming. Every challenge we tackle, however, can help us develop new strengths.

—> Take the weekend to reflect on the hardships you’ve experienced. Don’t stop at a single event. Think of a set of circumstances that deeply affected you over time. What defense mechanism did you have to rely on? What “superpower” did it help you develop? Is this a skill you deliberately and consistently leverage and that you constantly develop?

—> Think about each member of your team at work. What superpower do you see in them?