30 Days and change: Day 29

Day Twenty-Nine: What are you good at? Be honest, and don't sell yourself short.

Word Count: 260

What am I good at? Communication. I pride myself on being an excellent communicator. I love chatting and connecting with others, so effectively communicating with them is a MUST. Since I was little, my mom has been super serious about how I spoke to adults, how I spoke up for myself, asked questions, and handled folks who were providing a service to me, who were helping me with a process (or whatever). In middle and high school, I competed in oratory contests (and won each time), and throughout my professional career, I’ve nurtured a reputation of being one who is easy to talk to, knowledgeable, and empathic to others.

I’ve been an educator, using my communication skills to reach students and their families around the importance of seeing differences and the value that lies within our differences; in middle school, I acted as a peer mentor to support students who found themselves in trouble for typical child-like disputes during a school year. I am not new to this, and quite frankly, true to this. It takes true talent to see someone for who they are, flaws and all, and still connect with them through communication, whether through body language, eye contact, physical touch, or any other form of human communication. It always makes me think how I am holding a bit of space for the voiceless. How can I translate what might seem like a foreign language, to a tongue that is understandable by all? What might that do for someone’s day, someone’s life, or their near or distant future?