Grumpy or Giving?

I suppose I have always been interested in personalities.  It is such an endless topic with so many opinions, factors, and views.  I find it entertaining and enlightening to compare and contrast the reactions, actions, thoughts, and feelings of those around me.  We are all so unique!

I recently discovered an article on the internet about personalities.  I skimmed through it and found it to be very interesting.  First of all, he discussed the words we use when we describe others.  We talk about the features that stand out, therefore most of the words we use tend to be extremes (tall vs. short, talkative vs. quiet).  There is no word, however to describe the averages.  When I think of this, it reminds me of a project I had to do in drawing class.  We had to draw a pile of boxes using only black and white shapes.  While attempting to do this, boxes began to merge and the picture became very abstract.  Describing people is the same way.  If we tried to fit all the people in the world under two labels, it would require a lot of merging of personalities.  Just as realistic drawings incorporate many shades of grey, realistic representations of our friends may require more than just dubbing them as "outgoing" or "shy".

 

I snagged a few ideas about this from the article I was reading.  Below, are five groups of descriptive words corresponding to five generic terms.  When we place one of these five words on a scale with its opposite, we can satisfy ourselves with visualizing the "grey tones" even if there are no words to describe them.

{click on picture to view a larger version}

However, this does not solve all our problems.  We still may find it hard to decide where on the scale we belong.  What if we view ourselves as generally "stable", but remember that sometimes we experience some unpleasant emotions.  The simple answer is to average, ignoring the rare extremes.

As I reviewed these words, I noticed that some of them reminded me of literary characters.  I had to laugh when I read the definition for "neurotic" because it seemed it would be more clearly defined as "Mrs. Gummidge"!  I suppose fictional authors find that characters with a dominant, exaggerated personality trait are more interesting and useful in the plot.

 

This is my own attempt, but an average of others opinions would make it more accurate.

Try placing yourself on the scales.

To give credit to the article, here is the URL: http://personalityspirituality.net/articles/what-is-personality/

This does not mean that I agree with his philosophy on other topics.