Embrace Your Left-handedness
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There are some things in my life I am excelling at, while there are others I am failing miserably. It is frustrating for me because the things I am struggling with are actually things I am very good at. I shouldn’t be doing poorly, yet I am. It made me think of a story I once read about Ruth Bader Ginsberg.
RBG we all know was brilliant and did many things to change the way women are viewed and treated in the eyes of the law. I was surprised then to discover that she had received a D in one of her classes. While it was only penmanship, I still didn’t expect someone who was writing papers and published at the age of 13 to nearly pass a writing class. When I read further, suddenly it all made since. According to a collection of her writings, she failed because she was left-handed and at the time being left-handed was viewed as abnormal. As a result, her professor forced her to use her wrong hand.
A common practice at the time, being left-handed was considered wrong so people were forced to be right. When people force you to be someone you're not meant to be, you don't thrive. What’s amazing is that once society realized how absurd this was and being left-handed became acceptable, the percentage of left-handed people skyrocketed. At least it did so in some parts of the world; in others, being left-handed is still discouraged:
“In many parts of the world, the left hand is considered unclean or rude to use. If you're left-handed and visiting places like India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Nepal and the Middle East, it's thought of as rude behavior to eat, pick up or hand over things with your left hand.” -BBC
According to psychology today, for every 100 people born about 10 of them will be left-handed. That’s 10% of people who were (or in some cases still are) forced to adjust the way they naturally are. I wonder how many people received that D in penmanship and just accepted it. RBG was a bold woman who refused to continue with her right hand. After that one low grade, that she knew did not reflect who she was, she vowed she would never use her right hand again.
I love that story, but I can’t help but think about those who didn’t have the courage or capabilities to say no. How many people - whether left-handed or with some other minority-trait - are barely making it through life because they had to adjust who they were to match the 90%?
There are some things we fail because we’re just not good at them, and that’s perfectly acceptable. We should fail; we don’t need to be good at everything. But we should also ask the question - why did I fail? If you're getting a D in life, is it because you’re just not that good at it? Have you been putting in D effort? Or is the world trying to put you in a box you don't belong in? If it’s the latter, I hope you’ll embrace who you are. Sometimes thriving doesn’t require working harder or improving strategies, it just requires you to be you.
