Someone asked a job/career board earlier this week “what graduate degree should I get after being laid off?” A perfectly fine question, but it struck me as backwards. The question came from a view of themselves as lacking, as deficient. This person wasn’t asking what they might do with the skills they had, or how they might compliment them with more learning. They started with what they didn’t have – a graduate degree – and asked what they should do to fix the deficit rather than starting with what strengthens they had and going from there.

Swimming around in the world of dyslexia and other special needs and disabilities I’ve been thinking a lot about the lens we use to see our strengths and weaknesses. Over the past decade or so there has been a trend of seeing brain differences that can impact learning as superpowers rather than disabilities. Overall I find that useful. When my son was little we read the Percy Jackson book series where the hero is a demigod whose dyslexia and ADHD are part of his power. I follow Made by Dyslexia on social media and I’ve added Dyslexic Thinking to my skills on LinkedIn. I firmly believe my dyslexia is part of me, and part of my success. And yet, when I upended my professional life I decided to focus on remediating the weaknesses of dyslexia. Isn’t that a little contradictory? If dyslexia is a superpower, why would I want to remediate it?

As I’ve thought about why, a quotation from Zen Buddhist monk and teacher Shunryu Suzuki came to mind:

“Each of you is perfect the way you are … and you can use a little improvement.”

Suzuki’s warm affirmation helps me resolve the superpower-or-disability-conundrum. Alas, my dyslexia does not make me a demigod. But it also doesn’t make me broken. It makes me human, like every other unique and complex human on this gorgeous planet of ours. Each perfect in our own way, and each in need of a little work.

For my students with dyslexia, “in need of a little work” is the work of reading, writing and spelling, an achievable set of skills. It may be hard, it may be boring, but with elbow grease it is in reach. The need for that “little improvement” doesn’t change my student’s inherent perfectness just as they are. Remembering the long years when every interaction with a teacher felt like a humiliation, I have adopted education guru Alfie Kohn’s mantra: to communicate to every student unconditional positive regard – the promise to see each as a worthy human being, unconnected to their achievement or behavior.

For all of us wandering in a wilderness of unemployment, mid-life malaise, or other radical life disorientation, I wonder if we can embrace that “perfect as I am, and I can use a little improvement,” framing to help get us through. Throw in a dash of unconditional positive regard for ourselves, because our worth is inherent, unconnected to our job title or bank account. Starting from that foundation of okay-ness, it becomes less threatening, more hopeful to ask…what little improvement could I use?