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Vieraskieliset / In-english

Blog: What am I like?

Vieraskieliset / In-english
15.5.2021 7.05

Juttua muokattu:

10.5. 09:19
2021051009195020210515070500

I as­ked my child­ren what I should write in my next blog post. One of them sug­ges­ted I should write about my­self and tell the re­a­ders what I am like.

I tack­led this to­pic right away. I know I am smart, tren­dy, hand­so­me, yo­ung, suc­ces­s­ful, so­ci­ab­le, tal­ka­ti­ve, to­le­rant, en­vi­ron­men­tal­ly cons­ci­ous, and ext­ro­vert.

Aren’t these won­der­ful cha­rac­te­ris­tics? Would you be bet­ter? I don’t re­al­ly think so, be­cau­se I still did not men­ti­on all of my fan­tas­tic fe­a­tu­res, just in case so­me­o­ne might feel su­pe­ri­or to me.

But truth to tell, I must con­fess here and now that I may not be such a fan­tas­tic guy af­ter all. I so­me­ti­mes say things that are not li­te­ral­ly true. I might need to drop some of the epit­hets I lis­ted abo­ve. To start with, I am pro­bab­ly not very smart or tren­dy.

And ma­y­be I should al­so check the ot­her items on the list. I took a look in the mir­ror right now and re­a­li­zed that I will need to re-phrase what I said about being yo­ung and hand­so­me.

And about to my being suc­ces­s­ful… Can we re­al­ly de­du­ce anyt­hing about a per­son’s real suc­cess ba­sed on fi­gu­res ref­lec­ting his high stan­dard of li­ving or his me­rits and pros­pe­ri­ty? If we me­a­su­re suc­cess by such in­di­ca­tors, I could cross out the word from my list.

I will al­so have to cross out in­tel­li­gen­ce. I have not yet at­ten­ded in­tel­li­gen­ce tests. It is true, ho­we­ver, that cog­ni­ti­ve per­for­man­ce is on­ly one way to eva­lu­a­te in­tel­li­gen­ce, and we should not for­get the im­pact of prac­ti­ce. Pe­op­le le­arn what they want to le­arn.

How about being so­ci­ab­le and tal­ka­ti­ve, am I re­al­ly eit­her? I am not qui­te sure. These traits may just ref­lect my need to pro­tect my in­ner self. I gu­ess I will have to re-con­si­der even those two things.

Is it pos­sib­le that when I men­ti­on to­le­ran­ce and en­vi­ron­men­tal cons­ci­ous­ness, I miss so­met­hing es­sen­ti­al­ly im­por­tant. Those the­mes seem so comp­lex that it might be bet­ter for me to le­a­ve them to ma­tu­re a bit more, alt­hough they are fine con­cepts.

Being ext­ro­vert is a fun thing, but would it be just as im­por­tant to look in­si­de my­self and see how I am re­al­ly get­ting along? Ma­y­be I will find the truth on the in­si­de rat­her than among the out­ward cha­rac­te­ris­tics.

Int­ro­ver­si­on does not mean on­ly that we eva­lu­a­te our own li­mi­ta­ti­ons or pon­der on a prob­le­ma­tic life si­tu­a­ti­on. At its best it me­ans that we open the door on to life: let the dark­ness out and the light in.

It seems that my list of per­so­na­li­ty traits did not re­al­ly hit home. Is it even pos­sib­le that a list of ad­jec­ti­ves or dif­fe­rent let­ter com­bi­na­ti­ons could ever de­fi­ne or cha­rac­te­ri­ze the es­sen­ce of a per­son or even give a truth­ful desc­rip­ti­on of it?

While wai­ting to find an ans­wer to this qu­es­ti­on, the le­ast I can do is to ac­cept and ap­p­re­ci­a­te my uni­que per­so­na­li­ty. If I do that, I will be ab­le to en­ga­ge in ge­nui­ne in­te­rac­ti­on and com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on with ot­her pe­op­le.

I can al­so draw on all my skil­ls and the op­por­tu­ni­ties open to me when chal­len­ging my­self to work, to le­arn new things, to de­ve­lop, and to gain go­als that bring me joy and be­ne­fit my neigh­bors

Were there ul­ti­ma­te­ly any epit­hets on the list that did not re­qui­re mo­di­fi­ca­ti­on or chan­ge or were comp­le­te­ly truth­ful?

Well, there was one. I am a mi­rac­le.

I am a small pie­ce of the great mi­rac­le of life that we read about in the Psalms. "My frame was not hid­den from you when I was made in the sec­ret place, when I was wo­ven to­get­her in the depths of the earth." (Ps. 139:15)

I am al­so one of the many branc­hes of the vine, which are all dif­fe­rent from each ot­her, but all have the same vi­tal task: "Re­main in me, as I al­so re­main in you. No branch can bear fruit by it­self; it must re­main in the vine. Neit­her can you bear fruit un­less you re­main in me." (Joh. 15:4.)

By the way, what are you like? Why don’t you write a let­ter and tell me, so we can con­ti­nue our dis­cus­si­on!

Text: Joo­nas Ma­ju­ri

Trans­la­ti­on: Sirk­ka-Lii­sa Lei­no­nen

29.3.2024

Jeesus huusi kovalla äänellä: ”Isä, sinun käsiisi minä uskon henkeni.” Tämän sanottuaan hän henkäisi viimeisen kerran. Luuk. 23:46

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