Let's think more specifically about how I can make my characteristics work for me. Or as the Dread Pirate Roberts says, let's list our assets.
1. I am congenial and kind and engaging toward my students. I generally have a good rapport with them and enjoy a measure of popularity as a result. I know this is one of the ways I succeed at my job, but I also know that it demands a lot of me and my time and my emotional energy. It is also far too easy to get trapped by the notion that popularity and admiration are things to be sought...I would be lying if I said I don't enjoy my reputation.
2. I am a careful, methodical worker who seldom shows brilliance but does demonstrate a kind of steady reliability. I am not a self-promoter or a terribly creative sort. But when it comes to the kind of scholarship I am able to do, this may serve me well. We in the humanities are plagued with books, with "creative" approaches to our disciplines. Perhaps a slow but careful approach will yield a greater work in the end.
3. I have tried to create and maintain a reputation for honesty and discipline and hard work and even-handedness. Maybe I will be called on at some point to exhibit those qualities in a way that can really do my colleagues, my institution, or my profession some service. If I am not granted that chance, at the very least I can look myself in the eye.
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