It's Friday: You're Good At Things!!

During workshop last residency, one of my workshop leaders handed out an article about this book. Yesterday, while going through my critiques during my revising I found the article and read it again. And laughed.

I shared it with my friend, who right there on the spot went to Amazon on her ipad and bought it.

Then I thought, "I want this book. Why haven't I bought it? And so right there, I went to Amazon and bought it, too.

Then we had such a great time talking about it, I put it on my facebook page, and three more people almost immediately said they bought it. In the span of three hours, the Amazon ranking of this book went from 500,000 to 28,000.

Social media win!!

So what is this book? It's exactly what Andy Selsberg's title says it is: a checklist of things you are good at.

This is the description:

You may be suffering from unrecognized awesomeness!

* You have the uncanny ability to always notice when someone has gotten a new haircut.
* You can make the last half-ounce of toothpaste last for a month.
* You're a genius at getting stores to let you in even though it's closing time.
* You're a wizard at resisting the urge to eat all the cheese right after grating it.
This book is a celebration of all your secret skills and unheralded abilities. It calls attention to the way you're able to give your kids names that will never appear on key chains at gift shops, and cheers your talent for wrapping presents using very little tape. In your own way, you're a master, and the world should know it. Because let's face it: YOU ARE GOOD AT THINGS!

I love this idea. The idea of looking at what we are good at in life. Not the big things. Not like singing Opera or taking gallery-worthy photos or raising great kids. Simple things. Uncelebrated things. Like walking through a bra section of a store non-chalantly while your ten-year-old son says, "What is THAT thing??"

So this is what I think we should do today, my dear blogging friends. We should think about what we are good at. I'll start.

• I'm good at staying between the lines when I drive.
• I'm fantastic at getting my kids a Kleenex before the snot reaches their upper lip.
• I'm good at not swearing.
• I'm great at whipping up dinner at 7:00 when at 6:50 I had no idea what we were going to eat.
• I'm good at leaving laundry in the dryer for a week at a time, and then getting the wrinkles out by tossing in a wet towel and drying another 10 minutes when I need something to wear.
• I'm good at wasting an hour on facebook.
• I'm good at writing a first line of a story, then erasing it, then writing another, and erasing that one. I can do this for days.
• I'm good at ignoring voice mail.
• I'm good at keeping the fridge fairly mold-free.
• I'm good at listening to music.
• I'm great at listening to a kid's CD over and over and over, for months on end, without strangling anyone.
• I'm good at tucking my kids in.

And You? You dear readers are good at:

• loading your own dishwasher the right way.
• honking when drivers in front of you are not driving correctly.
• noticing the weather.
• being sarcastic.
• being friendly to cashiers.
• filling in the quiet spaces with the voices in your head.
• drinking out of a glass without spilling much on yourself.
• finding good books, reading them, and passing them on.
• wearing headphones.

So that is my list. I'd love if you added your own in the comments. What are YOU good at?

And if you are so inclined to continue the social win experiment, buy this book. Or post it on facebook and twitter. Give it to a friend who needs to be told they are good at things. I don't know the author or have any stake in this, but it's fun. :)

Have a happy weekend!! Go be fabulous!