Читать книгу SNAP! - Gary Small - Страница 7

People always ask me, “Were you funny as a child?” Well, no, I was an accountant.

—Ellen DeGeneres

EMMA FINALLY MADE IT to the front of the line at the bar and ordered a white wine. She had to yell because the band was playing too loud. She hated weddings, especially when she had to come alone. At 35, her parents and friends were starting to give up on her ever getting married. They accused her of being too choosy, but Emma knew that it was really just her shyness that always got in the way of making romantic connections.

She took a seat at table 12, her designated torture chair for the evening, and began calculating just how early she could make an escape. A couple of giggly women sat down and introduced themselves, but Emma couldn’t hear them over the band’s rendition of “New York, New York.”

After the toasts and before the salad, an attractive man from the next table came over and sat next to Emma. He said hello and asked her to dance. Emma avoided his eyes and shook her head. He turned and asked one of the gigglers instead. As Emma watched them walk to the dance floor, her inner voice screamed, What is your problem? He was cute and you are an idiot. Then she calmed herself by repeating her mantra of late: Forget about it; he was probably married or a jerk anyway.

Emma reached for her third dinner roll, but there was no more butter. She grumbled to herself, I should have stayed home.

Emma is one of the millions of people who suffer from excessive shyness and insecurity. She knew this about herself and accepted her fate. Sure, she would have liked to be more extroverted and open to new things, but that just wasn’t the personality she was dealt.

The term personality is derived from the Latin word persona, which refers to the theatrical masks worn by actors to display various roles or to hide their true identities. Today we think of personality as incorporating an individual’s characteristic patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. How we feel and think drives our behavior and causes us to act in certain ways.

Your personality traits tend to remain consistent over the years, and they have a major impact on your love life, career success, health outcomes, and even life expectancy. And although some of us may act in similar ways, no two people share the exact same character style.

Most people have a pretty good sense of who they are—they know themselves to be a certain way and behave accordingly. If you consider yourself to be creative, you probably do original things. If you think of yourself as generous, you are likely to be a giving person. If you believe you are overly sensitive, you probably get your feelings hurt a lot.

Sometimes it’s easier to identify the personality traits of other people than it is to accurately describe yourself. Think of a few people you know, perhaps siblings, friends, or work associates. You may be able to sum up their personalities in one word: Jim is bossy; Carol is intellectual; Sharon is temperamental; Peter is conscientious. Of course, one word is insufficient to define a whole person, but we tend to use these labels as shortcuts to determine how we will respond and act toward others.