"Reading People: How seeing the world through the lens of personality changes everything"
"The words of Reinhold Niebuhr’s now-famous serenity prayer spring to mind:
God, grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference."
I don't know if I can sum up my obsession with study of personality any better than with these words of Neibuhr's, that have been displayed in my kitchen for over a decade.
"I’ve found that personality insights help me see what changes need to be made, why those changes are necessary, and how to carry them out. Learning more about personality has helped me make peace with the way I was made (even though some days I’d rather trade myself in for a different model). It has helped me understand the people I love, live with, and work with, and it has helped me accept the way they were made, which is to say, differently from me." AB
There are countless amount of books out there about personality and countless systems and ways of studying personality. But "Reading People" is the first book I found that gave me such an easy to read bird's eye view of some of the more common and effective ways of processing personality.
"But you don't like labels!"
Yeah... I don't like labels, and I don't like boxes. But I am learning that this journey isn't about affixing labels or enclosing me in boxes.
"Understanding our personalities makes it significantly easier to change the things within our grasp. This is the whole point of studying the various frameworks! Some people resist personality frameworks because they say such frameworks put them in a box. I’ve found that understanding my personality helps me step out of the box I’m trapped in. When I understand myself, I can get out of my own way." AB
My journey with personality started back in the late eighties when I was a freshman in bible school. I was handed a test sheet for Myers Briggs and asked to fill it out under the assumption that I knew the answers to the questions it was asking. I was twenty years old at the time and in my mind now... much too young to process my personality. I got a type... I just don't know how accurate it was.
Over the years, I dabbled in personality in the way of birth order (Thanks to Kevin Leman) but I had to wait until my fifties to be introduced the the Enneagram.
"Until we learn to pay attention to our own patterns of behavior, we are powerless to change them." AB
It took me a while to embrace the Enneagram as something that could help me in my personal growth. I avoided it for a few years, but finally dived into it in 2020. So far... it's been worth it.
"Many people are afraid this introspective “navel-gazing” is narcissistic or indulgent, but I don’t see it that way! It’s brutal and necessary work if we truly want to see personal and spiritual growth." AB
I realize that a lot of people can navigate this life without the work of self-awareness and introspective work, I just realized I'm not one of them. I don't have it in me to just coast in this world and not dive deep into my soul for some purpose. My struggles with life are real and I need to address them, or they have the power to take me out.
"Self-discovery and self-formation are lifelong processes. No one is ever going to have all the answers. We’re not going to complete the task of reaching emotional or spiritual maturity, but if we can make substantial progress on the journey, we’re doing pretty well." AB
Thank you, Anne Bogel, for bringing me up a little higher in perspective when it comes to processing personality. I was feeling content to dive deep in to one expression, but you have helped me see that there is a lot of value in all expressions. Each brings its own value to the search for the answer to the ultimate questions... "Who am I"; "Who are they?" and "Why does that matter?"
"We are all different—in matters both serious and silly—and discovering those differences is strangely enjoyable. Cynics argue that we’re drawn to these simple check-the-box quizzes because we’re ill-equipped to deal with the complexity of real life, but I believe this trend points to something more substantial.
We’re not just looking for a way to kill five minutes online. Our methods may be questionable, but our motives are pure: we truly want to know more about ourselves and the people we interact with every day. We suspect our lives would be better if we actually understood ourselves and the people we love. We want to know why we do what we do, think what we think, act how we act—and why they do too." AB
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