Hey Pandas, What Skill Were You Surprised To Discover You Possess?

One day I suddenly discovered my ability to spend hours on BP

I'm blind but I'm really good at inline skating! Scares my mom to death.

I've been writing stories since I could pick up a pen, and my parents always said I was a great writer for my age. This October, I decided to try and publish my fanfic online, and what baffled by how well people told me I wrote.

singing! ok, i have no musical knowledge at all, but apparently i have a really good voice 😂

Singing, acting, and playing instruments. My family is more on the instrumental side of things, I still haven’t figured out where the other two came from. Other than that, I’m also really good at sports and academics (not math tho)

I have great hand eye coordination

The fact that I could do the splits without trying

My natural typing speed is around 60 wpm, when I'm trying to go fast it's around 70, and my fastest typing speed is in the 80s when I'm really desperate.

I can make my ring finger and only my ring finger move on command.
I have no clue how I discovered this it was probably sometime in kindergarten

I think I'm pretty good at singing...

fighting ig, I've gotten into a fair few fights and won most of them despite the fact I don't have any training. I have very powerful legs, and people have said my elbows are sharp enough to be blades.

I am like, really good at skip rope

I can twist my arm all the way and I have ACHOO syndrome

I can debate (read: argue) to beat the band.

Poetry and a good work ethic. Have tons of work experience and work very hard. Grew up in a family where my dad lived on my mother disability check. I am surprised I turned out how I did.

I am pretty good at remembering and identifying voices. Also, I do have ESP sometimes, which is sometimes recognizing patterns, then knowing what happens next.

Patience

I have quite a few. I can either get or give good or bad luck. Like for a competition, I got on a team that needed an extra person. We won and went to state, and when we went to state, another team from our school needed someone, so I joined, and we placed third! I did get my mom mad and it got us all into a car crash though.

Instruments. I Play two instruments (violin and piano) and I've played violin since I was 4, and piano since I was 6 or 7. I can also sing and I learned vibrato relatively early and quickly.

Speaking of quickly, I can learn quickly. What my brother has practiced 100 times when he was 4 stuck with me at age 2. That's also how I get high grades and how I was an advanced/GT student.

Avid artist, Poet, Writer, (currently writing a book) and youngest high school course starter in our family(7th grade).

But maybe my luck has something to do with my birthday being on the 13th. (ha ha)

I used to downplay this, but I can comfort and counsel nearly anyone I talk to, and that’s almost a superpower. I have a lot of psychological empathy and a tendency to see through people after talking to them for a little while. I can get someone to open up about deep vulnerabilities, or even pop the topic myself, and talk to them about that thing. I can be gentle enough that I leave the other person healed, even relieved, and holding their head a little higher. The other person feels safe around me, and I personally find it a little uncanny, because being sensitive is like brain surgery. One misstep can do a lot more damage, the deeper into their vulnerability you go. The closer you get to the core of a person, the more effective your impact. I’ve almost never had someone get angry at me, or walk away hurt after talking about something as deep and triggering as their regrets, self-esteem, or loss. I’ve had them feel really sad, but then seek my comfort. I’ve had people end up liking me when I feared they’d be hurt by me telling them to face a very hard truth. And they’d listen. I’m great at resolving conflict, too. It feels like the opposite of manipulation, when you’re authentic, and telling people why they do what they do to themselves, and show them how they ought to treat themselves. You just want them to see their own value and live by it. Admittedly, I should use it on myself more often. I eventually discovered, though, that even this form of empathy can ironically have a dark side. I once forced an abusive narcissistic parent who was being cruel and manipulative to suffer a panic attack. Just saw through him and slashed at every narcissistic injury I saw, and watched him crumble to a screaming and crying mess in a few minutes. He was suddenly like a small child inside, desperately and defensively trying to pass himself off as an adult. And it was horrifying to see the what I could do. I realized later, though, that’s not the kind of person I want to be to everyone around me. If heredity has anything to say about this, I think it partially explains why my parents are psychos. And why I should not be like them. Cognitive empathy is like a free-for-all access card to people’s vulnerabilities. It’s a lot of power for one person. Almost too much. Emotional empathy helps you be gentle and care about the other’s well being. The moment you factor emotional empathy out of the equation(out of anger, sociopathy, vengeance, bias, or narcissism), you can do some really messed up stuff. Or you can just be a lot more objective, on a mundane and harmless level.

Planting and growing vegetables. Discovered late in life that there is immense pleasure in this as well as enjoying giving fruit and veg to friends and neighbours. Also harvesting our own olives and getting them pressed. And don't get me going about my chickens.