A couple people paid me the high compliment recently of saying I was a great slave. It got me wondering what qualities make a “great slave”? As I turned it over in my head I realized what makes me different than most of the male slaves I’ve ever met are the same qualities that made me a really good programmer and musician in my past life and a good human being today.
I’m more empathic than the average person.
When you tell me a need or desire, it becomes *my* need and desire as well. I share your feelings of want and your need to have this “hole” filled so that you can continue being happy and fulfilled. It is the fact I feel your need so deeply that I’m more than normally driven to take care of it – for both our satisfactions.
I actually listen.
As a programmer I used to sit in endless meetings listening to users needs and convert them into actual programming. To be good at that, it’s a necessary skill to be able to actually hear what is being said. “I need to be able to push one button and have it all done!” actually means “The current process is too complex and/or time consuming and I need help simplifying it.”
“I need a tax attorney to do my taxes”, actually means “I need my taxes done and I’m not interested/willing/capable of doing them myself, so please. Just get it done.”
I am creative.
I don’t have to BE the tax attorney, but maybe I know one! Or maybe I can afford to hire one for you… Hear the real ask and if you can’t address it directly, get creative! Programming is a creative art. Music, my career choice before that was also a creative art. I like to create. Actually, I need too. It’s my juice. So when you tell me you want $2,220 to attend a kink event and I know I don’t have it, I turn up the creativity volume and set-up a GoFundMe-type page and advertise the hell out of it to raise your money. 🙂
Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, I am authentic.
By that I mean I am essentially a real and unfiltered version of myself. Not a copy or imitation of someone else in any way. What traits do fully authentic people embrace that make them so…them? Here is a great list from James Michael Sama, an internationally recognized author and personal development coach:
“1: They’re self-aware.
Being self-aware means being intimately familiar with your strengths, but also your idiosyncrasies. The little tiny quirks that make you unique to the world. It takes an immense level of confidence to build self-awareness because it means removing the emotion from recognizing our challenges. In other words: Stop feeling bad for yourself and see things as they truly are.
Only then are we able to fix what needs to be fixed, and also magnify the things that give us power.
If we ignore the realities of ourselves, we’ll always be looking through a blurred lens, and so will the rest of the world as they look at us. Clarity comes through honesty, and the more you love the things about yourself that set you apart from the crowd, the brighter you will let them shine.
2: They can “let go of the result.”
One thing to focus on is the concept of simply letting go of the results, meaning: It’s okay if that date doesn’t work out. It’s okay if that deal falls through. It’s okay if you don’t meet anyone at that party. There is value in the experience, but you’ll miss that value if you focus on what didn’t work out in the end.
Am I saying that you should be okay with losing all the time? No, of course not.
What I am saying is that we allow ourselves to be more free and open if we stop trying to hard to achieve a certain result at all times in our lives.
Doing so can influence our actions in ways that aren’t in alignment with our true identity, because we are trying to solve an equation more than we are trying to enjoy the experience.
When you can let go of the result, you’ll stop trying to put on a show in order to influence it, and simply… be.
3: They’re honest about where people fit into their lives (or don’t).
This is a difficult point to articulate because I don’t want to make it sound like people should be disposable or used as props in your life, because that’s obviously not the case.
What I do want to convey, is that fully authentic people understand who they truly are, which means they also understand what type(s) of people they do and don’t want to be around. They know who their tribe is, and who they get along best with.
They also know what types of people are toxic or harmful to them, are holding them back from achieving happiness, and who (most importantly), they are simply outgrowing.
This is perhaps the most difficult part of personal growth — being willing to outgrow the people who aren’t also choosing to grow in their lives.
4: They experience a full range of human emotions.
The truth is that nobody is happy all the time.
Happiness is a result of a chemical release in the brain which can be fleeting and easily influenced by external circumstances.
For example, it may be a gloomy, rainy day and you’re feeling generally sluggish and melancholy. To someone who’s pressuring themselves to “just be happy,” this mood can feel discouraging, or even like a failure. However, to someone who’s fully authentic, they understand that feelings come and go, emotions shift, circumstances change, and it is all part of the journey of life.
This is why fulfillment, over happiness, should be the goal.
Fulfillment is created when we build a life that we can be proud of and feel genuinely aligned with. Those are much more robust feelings than being happy in the moment, or sad in the moment, or frustrated in the moment.
Fully authentic people don’t fake their feelings just because they think they’re “supposed” to be a certain way. They accept and embrace their emotions, and then decide how to process them.
5: They are consistent.
Perhaps the hallmark trait of authenticity is consistency.
When someone is authentic, they always show up as themselves, which means you know exactly what you’re going to get.
It takes a lot of work to develop one’s true identity and purpose. I understand the immense amount of courage that it takes to look at one’s self through clear eyes and acknowledge the things they want to change. This is why, though, once that work is done — there’s no going back.
You become so sure, and so certain in who you are, that it is how you operate at all times from there on out.
Building a life that aligns with your most authentic self will lead you to levels of fulfillment and joy that chasing flimsy goals or listening to other people’s opinions can never achieve. You’ll feel more confident in yourself, you’ll build more healthy relationships, and you’ll be truly proud of everything that you accomplish along the journey.
At the end of the day, that is life’s greatest achievement.”
So all that is one path to earning praise as a “great slave”, I’m sure there are others and other traits people find important in their servants.
What would you add to the topic?
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