Personalities - Three Types

This may be the one of the many times that I will be iterating that every individual is different. One more factor that certainly embellishes this fact is the way we tackle problems in life. Right since birth we encounter various problems in life and we try to find a solution of those problems either with the help of people who are closely related to us or alone. In Erik Erikson’s (a neo-freudian psychologist) words, these problems are termed as ‘conflicts’. His idea of categorizing one’s development into stages also incorporates the significant role of conflict. Every stage, in his view, comprises conflicts which ideally need to be successfully accomplished. How well a person tackles them determines how his personality would be shaped up and also how well his other stages would be confronted. Anyways I don’t intend to discuss Erikson here. My idea of writing is to zero upon some of the ways I have seen people tackling their problems which says a lot about their personality.

I generally categorize people into 3 broad categories on the basis of how they confront a particular problem. We all know that socialization is something that has a great impact on one’s personality though heredity shouldn’t also be ignored. Now the first set of people when they come out of a particular problem sit with themselves and think about what all went wrong. Was there something lacking from their side that they could not handle the situation? What were the things that they lacked? What steps should they have taken to effectively handle it so that if it confronts them again they are all ready for it? Or was the situation something that they could never have handled or what steps should be taken so that it can be avoided if they come across the same problem in future? And finally they would end up doing a kind of SWOT analysis every time this happens to them. And these are the people who know themselves well because you can contemplate only when you know your strengths and weaknesses. This category, I would term, is the best of all because they don’t live their life in deception and also emerge as successful creatures in whatever they do.

The second category is one that doesn’t know anything about itself. They are total frauds as I would term them. They continue to deceive themselves all through their life and also end up deceiving others. They come across problems but since they have zero or near zero self awareness, it is highly likely that they don’t waste time on their failure (quite positive!) but they continue to face the same problems and hence commit the same mistakes. Since they are ‘lost in their own world’, they are the distanced very far from the word ‘Success’. They are poorly adapted to their environment and luck, if any, plays a very important role in their success.

The third category is one that can be really said to be ‘lost in its own world’. They do face problems and are very much aware of the things that go wrong but they consciously or unconsciously fail to act upon their failure. May be they are too lazy or too arrogant that they refuse to change. They may feel that they are right in their own way and there is no need to change and it was the problem’s nature that it can’t be solved and nobody could have solved it they way it came. They also live their life in deception (as seen from an objective perspective) but ‘their’ perception doesn’t term it as deception. This category may consider everyone else useless and itself to be of superior breed. And probably that is the reason that they don’t even try to change or act upon the problem so that it doesn’t bother them again. They are comparatively better adjusted than the second category because they find themselves comfortable only in the company of people who are similar to them in most of the ways.

Finally, if seen from a holistic picture the first category may appear to be an ideal one but it is hard to find oneself in one category all the time. I do agree that sometimes it happens that we jump onto other categories because human nature is hardly static but the major proportion of which category the person lies in ultimately decides what kind of person he is and a lot can be predicted about how he would be in the years to come. Anyways neither am I here to pinpoint anyone nor to tell that I lie in ‘x’ or ‘y’category. Its just that I wanted to give a concreteness to my observation.

Perception is reality

One thing that I learnt from my Psychology lessons is that every person is different. And when I say that every person is different it is self explanatory that everyone perceives differently as well. Whatever we comprehend about the world completely depends on how we have perceived the world. The world may not in fact be really like that.

I have come across many people who say that they have been used by other people. But then a question comes did the other person force you to behave like that? It was you who gave yourself in to the other person’s requests. It was completely your choice that you succumb to that person. But then another question comes – What made you to succumb to that person? The answer lies in the perception. People perceive the world and of course its inhabitants as they themselves are. And therefore people who see themselves as ‘Can never do bad to anyone’ will perceive the world a fair place. But since I have told that the real world is not what you have perceived, you may come across people who take advantage of your innocence and when they are sure that you are not beneficial to them anymore they are ready to part with you giving excuses which have no logical basis. It becomes very late to realize that you have been used to hell and hence you waste time on repenting what the other person did although the fault lays largely with you. It is human being’s tendency to blame others for the wrongs that we try not making improvements in ourselves and tend to commit the same mistake again and again. One repercussion of this is that some people start taking a negative view of the things around them but this is not a good strategy to go with. The best thing is to consider every person as a good person but never expecting anything from him. The moment you start expecting and forcing other people to do what you feel is the right way, that very moment you have chosen the path of utmost ‘selfishness’. This is what my psychology teacher has taught me.

You must believe that people who care for you will never ask questions to you and the ones who don’t care, I don’t think you need to explain anything to them. So just be yourself giving importance to only those people who are selflessly tied to you. But it is hard to find people of this kind in this world. Bad experiences in one’s life should only be taken as a cue to caution you of what lies ahead and not develop any kind of prejudice against anyone. The moment we are able to carry out these things, our life becomes more meaningful and the rewards, if not now, will definitely come later in life.

The Philosophy of Life - 1

I am starting a series called “The philosophy of life” wherein I would pen down some of the aspects/events of life that are inevitable and aim at imparting a lesson to those who are ready to learn from the bitter/sweet realities in their journey from womb to the tomb. One of the aspect that has recently propelled me to share is centered on the importance we give to various people we meet in this journey.

Right from birth an infant comes across different people. Some have a profound effect on his personality and some just come and go without making a considerable impact on him. As a result of this direct or indirect interaction with people, he inculcates few of the things and that becomes a part of his personality and stay with him all through his life. Now when I say that the interaction has an impact on the personality of the person it is quite evident that he must have given high importance to that person and as a result he has borrowed something from him in the process. But when I look at this process from the perspective of the other person, the story of life seems to be a bit ironical. There also exist people who give a lot of importance to us (infant) but most of us don’t realize it and tend to ignore what the person has done to us. And these are the people who are least valued. We simply act/feel indifferent to most of his behavior. And this is not something that is very specific to Ram or Shyam. It happens to most of us. And when I say most of us, it means I am talking of the majority. One of the best examples I can give is that of parents. Parents, especially in India, do everything for us but how many times do we stop and think seriously about them or about what they have done to us. Some people would reject my argument saying that it is their duty to do that. I’ll half-heartedly agree with them but we can always thank them in a way that would make them special and make them realize that they hold a special place in our life.

This is just one example. It may be applicable to many others, be it friends, strangers, who has had tried to give a new meaning to our life. Simple ignoring them would simply be being selfish on our part. We must try to understand that in a world comprising selfish and self-centered creatures if someone is taking pains we must thank them. And thanking them doesn’t merely mean saying thank you and some of these things can’t be taught. People just run for bigger things without even knowing that those bigger things are the ones that are the most difficult to possess. And in the process we ignore the importance attached to the smaller things which are easy to get. It is well said that we attach less value to the war which is easily won. And unfortunately that is what the human nature is all about.