What do you feel is your biggest area of strength?

I'm filling out a job application right now and that's the question I have to answer in roughly two lines of text. Oh, please. I'm already skipping questions and planning to go back to them later. You have to ask this question!

Am I strong in any area? I'm funny, sometimes, with the right people if I'm on a roll. I don't think that's what they're looking for, and it would be pretty sad if that was my biggest strength. But I've got to put something down. I don't see the point of asking such a roundabout question. They don't actually want to know what my biggest strength is, they just want to gauge my response. But if I answer honestly and say my biggest strength is honesty, what do they do with that? In order to be effective, the question really requires some dishonesty. But in that way it's completely self-defeating.

I think I may be reading too much into this question. I tend to do that with applications. My answers are often overly complex and tell little about me except that I am eager to please and read too much into their questions. But how can I possibly answer the question and acheive a good result. In all likelyhood, the answer to the question won't hardly factor into their decision at all. But if I go by that logic and give a lousy answer, it will end up affecting their decision.

To be honest, a bunch of qualities instantly spring to mind. But they are instantly shot down because they all refer to how I am around other people. Let's face it, I'm usually a pretty nice guy outside my home. But around the house I can be a monster and frequently am. I yell and sometimes scream at my brothers, talk back to my mom, ignore my dad and get mad over the stupidest things. When someone is annoying me and other people whom I want to impress are watching, I am patient to the nth degree and then some. I have zero patience, however, when no one is around to watch me blow up. I'm caring and compassionate towards my family, my friends, and I have a vague sense of compassion for the world, but I care about myself a quintillion times more.

Let's face it. I'm a self-centered, self-serving, aggressively hateful broken-down machine. But you knew that already, and so did I. I listen to Steriogram. I'm a mess! So we've established that, but let's be real. The people who came up with this application form already knew that too. Why in the heck did they write the question, then? Just to make me further aware of my inadequacy and be spurred to write this?

No, of course not. They put the question in because they were writing a job application form and everyone puts that question in their job application forms. I guess the most honest answer I can give is that I'm compassionate and enjoy helping people. That'll sell me for a teaching position. I just hate applications in general.

Here are some lyrics about getting older. This is how I've been feeling all year and especially this week. Reading these words makes me want to stay up all night and drive down to the oval to feed cripples. Why did I waste so much of my life? Tomorrow I'm going to do something worthwhile, I promise. You hold me to that, okay?

We can't go to sleep

'Cause we'll wake up older,

We can't let these nights

Steal away half our lives.

-Sanctus Real, "Half Our Lives."