It’s funny how certain personality traits will emerge early in life and stay with you, in one form or another, for a very long time!
In my case, the trait at hand is reading too much into things. I’m no Derrida, and I’ve learned to modulate this inclination over time, but really, I like to read deeply into things, especially words, phrases, and the like. I’ve had to learn to modulate this because, sometimes, you just reach the wrong conclusion doing this, but other times it can be quite a meditation on the meaning of something regardless of what others believe.
Consider this document from 2nd grade. It shows results from standardized testing, but that’s not the point. Firstly, look at the care the teacher took to reply thoughtfully to some of the scores! This teacher was one of the most inspiring I ever had, it just so happened to be in 2nd grade instead of later.
But read the key sentence “Peter, I believe, looks too deeply into a question.” Often true!
Anyways, I kept this all these years because of the value of this feedback. I didn’t always get that much useful feedback in grade school, but when I did, I sure remembered it.
I don’t know who may read this, but if you read too much into things too, you’re proverbially “not alone”, it happens to the best of us!
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