If by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;I
f all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

Don’t Tell Me I’m Nice. I Know I’m Not.

(Let’s go to Gordon Allport.)

You may describe a person you know using so and so adjectives. You may have used around 5 to 10 adjectives in describing your friend, colleague, or parent… These adjectives are a person’s central dispositions or the “5 to 10 most outstanding characteristics around which a person’s life focuses.” These adjectives give an overall summary of a person’s personality. If you want to more comprehensively describe the person, then you may just use secondary dispositions or those traits that “are not central to the personality yet occur with some regularity…”. You must know the person really well if you are able to describe him using secondary dispositions, even more so if you can distinguish between his central and secondary dispositions.

The person may say that the adjectives you used to describe him are not accurate. Or he may say that they are true, yet they don’t really matter to him… You describe him as being dependent and needy, but he doesn’t care. Those things don’t define him. What’s more important to him are the traits which he considers part of his proprium.

The proprium include “behaviors and characteristics that people regard as warm, central, and important in their lives.” These traits are crucial in defining a person’s identity and provide foundations to which a person makes his choices and creates his goals. Relating this to Carl Jung’s archetypes, the proprium may or may not include traits in the persona, and may or may not include traits in the person’s shadow. As long as people consider them crucial in defining who they are, these characteristics and behaviors will belong to one’s proprium.

This is another explanation why we can’t seem to pinpoint other people’s true personality. There are some traits which they do not consider important in their lives. These traits may be observed regularly, but the person may not give any thought to them.

Carl Jung

Credit to Wikipedia

The Whole

Only as we embrace the things we hide and deny can we have balance and harmony in our lives. Accepting our shadow, anima, and animus, together with our persona, is not an easy task. It’s like embracing the darkness to be able to see the light. No one wants to go into the darkness… no one knows what she might face there.

But to achieve totality and to be the best person one can be entails accepting one’s true self, which includes the conscious part of personality as well as the unconscious part. It also includes acknowledging the influence of our culture, our family, and our elders on our personal development. After all, we are not able to survive by being alone.

Mandala: Symbol of Balance

You Go There. I Go Here.

Persona, according to Carl Jung, is “the side of personality one shows to the world”.

Contrast that with a person’s shadow which “represents those qualities that people do not wish to acknowledge but attempt to hide from themselves and others”.

That’s it! That’s why people can’t seem to grasp the whole me… or that’s why I don’t understand others the way they want me to. There is a part of their personality that is hidden. This part may be denied or may not be acknowledged by the person, or it may be known but is not expressed as the person’s persona is.

What strikes a chord is that each of us possesses a shadow. We all believe that our shadow may be what makes us weak or strange or unlikable, but each one of us has it. This similarity ultimately reflects our shared humanity. The persona and shadow are just some of the archetypes proposed by Jung. These archetypes are patterns or images that have been passed from generation to generation, ultimately making up our collective unconscious.

We all have a face we show to the world, and we all have a face we hide as well. That’s why we should not be quick to judge or blame… We all go through the same trials and face similar conflicts as we try to acknowledge, accept, and embrace our shadow. That’s why we recognize, praise, and envy others’ strengths (because we want to make them our own). That’s also why we pounce and shred other people’s weaknesses (because we do not want them within us). All our roads are not easy… To pass the first test of courage- that’s what we all want.

An Infinitesimal Snapshot of Personality

Describing and explaining human personality seems like such an impossible task. How does one start to chart the, oftentimes, incomprehensible? I can describe myself and those I know by using adjectives, but doing so does not fully capture who I am or who they are. I can try to explain other people’s behavior by referring to their family background (Oh, it’s because she came from a broken family.), educational background (He acts that way because he comes from a not-so-good school.), life goals (She wants to be rich one day.), and what have you. But being fitted into a box, being described as so-and so, being expected to act a certain way… is just downright annoying.

Oh, that’s just the way she is.
Oh, she acted out of character. What happened to her?

I act in certain ways that for other people are “out of character” for me. This certain person talked about that being sensitive and being emotional is “not me”. In her words, “Emotional ka ba? Sensitive ka ba?” To her I say, “Eh sino ka ba? Kilala mo ba ako? Wala ka ngang alam sa akin except facts about me. Yes; you know my dad, my mom, where I studied, my favorite color and food, etc.… But that doesn’t mean you know me.”

So, where does one start in attempting to explain personality? One starts with his own beliefs, his values, and his family and educational background. That’s where all personality theorists started. A theorist can try to be bias-free, to be as objective as possible in formulating theories on personality. He can try, but the theory will always reflect the theorist.