THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF STRENGTH

It is a good day, the kind of good day you have when you can see, beyond any doubt that something has gone well, better than you expected. It is the kind of good day you have when somebody else also noticed that it went well, and your two stories of how it happened are similar enough that you can actually believe it happened.

It’s also a good day for Ron. He’s so thrilled to share the news. He has a new job. If Ron had not got his new job he would never have been able to leave his old job. What’s more, if Ron’s new job hadn’t paid fifty percent more than his old job, then he would never have found out how valuable he actually is, and he would not have discovered that the boss at his old job was willing to offer him more money than he was going to earn at his new job. And if none of this had happened, Ron might never have known the sweet satisfaction of leaving his old job despite the offer, leaving as a proud man, a valued man, the kind of man a business will fight to keep.

The pride is a new thing for Ron, a novelty for both of us. It felt so good to see him proud. He got the new job by using his number 1 strength, curiosity. It really was something to celebrate.

I have to confess that I didn’t pick curiosity out as his top strength when he came to me for counselling. In fact, I didn’t notice curiosity in him at all. I saw what he saw, the man he was able to show me, a shy and lonely man. It’s a funny thing how depression will just blank out the person sitting before you. It hung over him like a heavy oppressing fog, keeping him on the inside and me on the outside, calling to each other as if from a great distance. .

Getting to know a man shrouded in depression is an exploration. Perhaps it is a little like human archaeology; the science of uncovering what is hidden. Shy people are the hardest to get to know. It takes a long time to find their core if you leave it up to normal conversation.

To save some time, I asked him to go on the Internet and complete the VIA Signature StrengthsQuestionnaire. I knew it would name his strengths. The test told us that he was a curious, creative man who loves to learn, a forgiving man who cares about being fair. This was a self-portrait he had not shown me, but when I checked with him, he said it seemed accurate to him. He could even verify its truthfulness. He was able to tell me how curiosity, creativity and love of learning showed itself in the electronics and computer activities that filled his free time.

“Not much of a profile for a salesman,” he said. No wonder I am so unhappy.”” He was working in sales at the time. He got the job because he had some specific knowledge about the products he was selling.

Our exploration had only just begun. With a little more conversational digging, we unearthed another buried truth. He was satisfying his curiosity by wondering things, trying things, and looking up information in books. But as for coming right out and asking a question, this was something he rarely did. What’s more, he really didn’t know much about the mechanics of question asking.

His love of learning began to help us. He could learn to ask better questions. I taught him a few question-asking basics. He called on his curiosity for topics and practiced asking questions of me. Then he went to work and started being curious about the needs of the customers he was serving. His interest flattered the customers. Conversations got going. The information exchange helped them make better purchases.

That is how he got the new job, not by looking for a job, which is what I had hoped he would one day be able to do, but by being chosen for a job through conversation with a customer. It was achieved by learning new skills to augment strengths that were hidden from me by depression. Depression hides so much. It makes people seem so hopeless. I have to keep reminding myself that I have no idea what might be hidden there. As Norman Cousins once said, “We simply know too little not to hope.”

This morning a celebration was in order. Every counsellor needs good days like this one. We need them to keep our hopes up.