Monday, April 18, 2011

Overcompensation



Overcompensation: a defense mechanism whereby an individual attempts to offset weakness in an area of their lives by focusing on another aspect of it.

I'm really terrible at math, so to make up for that deficiency I've excelled at music. In school I was getting Cs and Ds in algebra, but I was first chair cello and in our high school orchestra. My friend Brook was a math whiz but she couldn't identify a bass clef to save her life.

This is how it is in the world and I've come to accept it. In fact, I think it's a good thing that people have different strengths and weaknesses. It's all about balance. What if everyone in the world could build a house but no one knew how to bake a cake? Where would we be?

4 comments:

  1. Well I am a math failure and tend to agree with you. can't stand the stuff......

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  2. I'm better at maths now that I'm older and have more confidence. I had some terrible maths teacher that didn't help me. Working in a craft shop with measuring quantities made a huge difference to my numeracy skills :O)

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  3. For me it was moving to another school in 9th grade. The new school was farther ahead than where I was. My teacher didn't help at all. All he did was play chess with the math genius boys. No wonder I had an aversion to math.

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