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Re: Aspects of your personality that have a double edge.
| quote: | Originally posted by RJT
I had something happen today that has made me think about aspects of my life that are both beneficial as well as detrimental to me - namely that I'm competitive.
This has served me well quite often, like today - I had handed in a second exam for one of my courses after receiving the first one back weeks earlier with a comment that read "I think you are capable of much better." The exam grade was a B-, but the fact that the professor thought I could do better stuck with and really bothered me. I got my second exam back today, got an A+ on it, and not only did the professor write on my exam that he thought I had a real talent for this kind of writing and that he was proud of me, but he also held me after class to let me know for sure how well he thought I did, and to try and offer some advice as far as getting into grad school.
It felt great, but being challenged/competing also has a real ugly side for me, one which the majority of you are all too familiar with - I engage in arguments that are often times pointless and that would be better left alone than perpetuated. It doesn't just happen on the internets, it happens with some of my closest friends too. I don't like it when I see myself engaging in these kinds of activities, yet sometimes I find myself doing it without even thinking about what's going on. It is easily the one area of my personality in which I feel like I have the most improvement to do, and I guess just realizing how this kind of thing can be both good and bad for me was kind of an "epiphany" of sorts.
So I put the question to you guys, do you have anything like this that you see in your own life (something that can both help and hurt you)? If so, is the negative aspect something you do reflexively, but the positive seem like something you really have to work at? Does it bother you that there are times when it seems like the negative aspects of the trait are reflexive, rather than rationally deliberated upon and chosen?

This has been todays "Self Help" thread brought to you by RJT and Stewart Smalley - because I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and gosh darn it, people like me.
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tldr
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