Choose and complete a questionnaire from the University of Pennsylvania Authentic Happiness website. Why did you pick this one, and what was your experience with it?
I took the VIA Survey of Character Strengths questionnaire so that I could better understand my strengths and how they may relate to the projects I am currently pursuing and those that I may pursue in the future. My results showed the following as my top 5 strengths:
#1 Honesty, authenticity, and genuineness
#2 Kindness and generosity
#3 Caution, prudence, and discretion
#4 Judgment, critical thinking, and open-mindedness
#5 Gratitude
I was somewhat surprised at my top 2 strengths as they aren’t things that I often think about. I’ve always just automatically valued honesty and generosity. This most likely comes from my upbringing in which I was constantly surrounded by these kinds of characteristics. I’ve never had to question that lying is wrong or to help someone in need because that’s what my mom taught me through her actions.
I do often actively think about 3-5 and work toward improving all three of them. I am a naturally cautious person (which sometimes comes off as overly cautious when I’m making a difficult decision) who is sometimes even afraid to make the wrong decision. I also tend to try to look at my decisions from every single angle possible. This makes me think of my search to understand what career is for me. I constantly am thinking of different pros and cons for all of the careers that even remotely interest me. That’s probably why it’s taken me so long to finally narrow down my interests to research and teaching, but that also means that I feel more confident in my decision because I know that I’ve truly thought of everything from every angle.
Gratitude, #5, is a strength that I have recently (in the past couple years) been working on, and it was a pleasant surprise to see that it has become something I can consider a strength. I’m not saying that I was not a grateful person before, but after I developed chronic migraine, I found that reminding myself of all the wonderful people and things in my life helped tremendously my quality of life. Even on my worst pain days, I can think of so many things to be grateful for; even the fact that I do have chronic migraine has helped me to find an amazing migraine community and has introduced me to the world of advocacy. Having a chronic illness, in itself, makes me see the world differently and provides me a perspective through which I can help to make the places I love more accessible and the people I love more cognizant of disability and accessibility issues.
