What is your superpower? (move, benefit, toddler, conversations)
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Based on my reading of this Retirement Forum, I would say your power is the gumption and courage to take the leap of relocation all alone; when Portland Oregon became too expensive for you, you did your research and moved all the way to Cleveland, Ohio. So many people would have surrendered to inertia in order to stick with the familiar, thus guaranteeing that they would eventually be ekeing out a miserable existence, but you had the guts to make a big change and it has paid off for you.
Thanks for calling it guts. I kind of think of it more as fear. Fear of what you have described as a "miserable existence" which would certainly have been my fate. Having to share the place with all those insufferable newly-minted Yuppies gave me a big push too.
My father was like that, too. He had to leave school at age 12 after his father died in an accident and go to work to support the family. So not a lot of book learning. Years later, when he had a family and I came home from school with an algebra problem I was not able to figure out, he would ask me to tell him what it was, after supper he would lay down for a half hour, get up and tell me the answer. Only problem was he could not tell me how he arrived at the correct answer and that is what the teacher wanted....... how did I figure it out.
I found that I can do that, especially when its a story plot, but also with a hard decision. At first its a dire choice, with all the emotion attached to it, especially with the elements of ptsd I think I have. One fall and it feels like everything is going to go to pieces. But I've learned to let the feelings out, and then relax and sleep. When I wake up, I might not have figured out everything but the fear has gone. If I have to I can sit down and objectively tell myself that its likely not going to. And away from fear I can navigate.
I think the brain holds capacities we don't always use. One is being in the 'background' and sorting out the stuff our aware brain can't quite manage to. You need sleep or at least some calmness to make it work, but it does.
I think when story tangles come up, the brain takes them thread by thread and looks them over, like a program you run. All I know is that when I've given up and put it away, time goes by and then its just *there*, so clear and defined.
When people are caught in emergencies, often survival depends on if they are among those who become ruled with panic and fear, and cannot see any solutions, or those who have this 'shift' in perception where all the emotion goes and the necessary is all they see. This gets us past our 'social filters' which would change our options. I think the way sometimes our brains just go on solving the 'programs' we give up on are in part an element of this.
The more we learn about the way the brain works, the more amazing and awesome it becomes.
I learned how to 'shut down' some of the noise around me, and when I took tests often used this mode. It's also rather excillerating. I think we all have 'super powers' if we let ourselves find them and let them fly free.
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"It's WARY, or LEERY (weary means tired)"
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Location: A Yankee in northeast TN
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I am jealous of a lot of these!
I think my superpower is ... creating confusion!
I tend to misspeak, misspell, mistype, leave out steps when I explain things that I'm super familiar with, and misplace things. Also I frequently like to argue both sides of a thing, leaving others in doubt as to how I actually feel about it.
Wow, I would love to have that. I always seem to do the opposite.
I have one regular and one eerie one. First, I am a great organizer. Not parties, but personal and household. When we were in the process of buying each of our last 2 houses I kept a notebook and could always find anything I needed pertaining the building of the house. They used to laugh about it, but they couldn't pull anything on me as I could pull out the info in a second. Same with things at home. I can find just about anything I, or DH, needs. I always get upset with DH when he doesn't put things back where I had them. I can picture when things need to be and how to organize everything...and make it logical!
Second, I have always seemed to have an ability to "sense" things. I can sense things about people and if they are good, honest or otherwise. DD thought it was creepy when I didn't like one of her friends or boyfriends and they ended up being not such a good person. When I was traveling a lot on business, I would get a bad feeling when on my way to the airport, and sure enough when I got there my plane would be cancelled or severely delayed. No cell phones in those days. Once when I was young and was at a company picnic I had a feeling that they were going to ask me to pick names for the doorprizes (they always picked out a different kid every year to do that). Mom told me to take my little cousin on the park rides and even though I asked her to please let me wait, she made me go. Sure enough they called my name and I wasn't there. There have been many of these "feelings" throughout my life.
I get those too. I've learned to listen to them. Sometimes its weird with me just knowing to keep something, and finding I need it the next week. I had a disc of files I'd backed up, and was going to copy over it. But something said no. The hard drive got a glitch a few days later and it killed all those files. It would have been hard to replace them without the backup.
I do the visual thing too. If I'm looking for it I don't think in words. I try to picture it where it is, or what's around it. If I get stressed I quit and let it work in calm and I'll get this picture suddenly. Most of the time I do find things this way.
I am bumping this thread to the top, in case there are some of you who want to post, and have forgotten about it.
I reread all the posts and I loved them. I feel as if I learned things about some of you that made me feel as if I knew you. In some of the posts I recognized talents that I have, although not of the superpower strength. And I became envious of the ones I don't have, like parallel parking! I've never learned how to do that reliably.
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