Navel Gazing
How would you rate my work ethic?
A friend of mine recently sent me an email asking me to answer some introspective questions about him, and I've been working on the reply for something over two weeks. It is still in my Drafts folder and I'm compulsively editing and re-editing, deleting and adding until my sentences have been hacked down to their simplest, shining, adjective-laden forms. His questions:
How would you rate my work ethic?
Creative vision?
Potential for success?
What is my greatest weakness?
What is my greatest strength?I am doing a little self analysis and I respect your opinion as a friend and colleague.
But it's a challenge, this reflection. It forces me to reveal the essence of my opinion, which in turn forces me to fully develop and communicate that opinion. Trivial as that sounds, it is difficult.
The questions also needle me: how would I answer them of myself? Have I developed my own perspective on these topics? The process of answering these questions for him helps me to understand what I consider to be desirable work-ethic, creative vision, success, weakness and strength.
Part of my reply is the condition that he answers the same of me. I will finish my email today, and look forward to his reply.