Positive Thinking: Everything you have always known about positive thinking but were afraid to put into practice. Vera Peiffer

       7 Some Personality Traits and Their Strategies

      In this chapter you will see a variety of personality types and their respective idiosyncrasies.

      Please note that there is hardly anybody who is entirely in one category – we are all made up of a variety of personality elements that have evolved over the years. Personality is something that we are born with but it is also subject to external influences.

      If you have children, you will be able to confirm that personality is evident at a very early age. One baby will sleep through the night while another will cry frequently. One child is lively and curious and eager to learn, the other placid and quiet, developing rather late.

      In the following years, a lot depends on the environment of that lively or placid child. If the liveliness is seen as a positive quality, then it is likely that the child will eventually learn to channel this energy in a useful way. If the liveliness is seen as desirable (which it usually is for boys, but not for girls) and the child is given total freedom to display this lively behaviour at all times, the child can become very unruly because it lacks boundaries.

      If, on the other hand, parents and/or teachers define the lively child as hyperactive and naughty, the child may get into all sorts of trouble for its ‘negative behaviour’. Punishment of some sort may follow a display of liveliness, and the child will learn to either suppress the behaviour or to start displaying the behaviour in an exaggerated way, thus provoking more punishment, which, in turn, makes the child behave in an even more disruptive way, until it has finally become the obnoxious little brat the parents have always told the child it was.

      This is self-fulfilling prophecy par excellence.

      Shyness, too, can be labelled in different ways. It can either be regarded as ‘good manners’, and therefore appropriate and desirable, or it can be scolded and punished as ‘backward’ and ‘stupid’. How the child is subsequently treated and develops then depends on that initial labelling.

      The child labelled as having ‘good manners’ may develop into a very inhibited person who is incapable of venting his or her feelings, be they good or bad. The child that is called ‘backward’ may develop an inferiority complex and never achieve anything. It is quite a job to get it right, isn’t it? You might as well forgive your parents because you are bound to make mistakes yourself once you are a parent.

      As influences coming from parents, siblings, teachers and classmates are particularly strong during childhood and adolescence, it stands to reason that the attitudes of the social environment will have a substantial impact on a young person’s life. Since a six-year-old cannot just pack his bags and say, ‘Right, I’ve had enough of being treated like an idiot! After all, I’m the only one round here who understands computers!’ and walk out, he will have to keep on listening to parental complaints about his inadequacies until he can move out, which may not be for another ten years or more. By that time, the idea is firmly settled in his mind that he is no good.

      Again, this is painting an extreme picture as most of us had a reasonable mixture of praise and disapproval during childhood. Yet, we do not seem to emerge from our cocoons of childhood without a bit of a struggle. Some events or remarks may have affected us more severely than we realised at the time, and they still exert their influence on us today. We all have our histories. We all have our struggles and so did our parents, who had to cope with their parents one way or another.

      This does not mean that we are determined by our past forevermore, though. If you did not like the way your parents treated you, you can always choose friends who treat you differently once you are grown up. If you have reacted with great anger every time someone has accidentally jostled you in the street for the last 20 years, then it is going to take time and effort to get rid of this angry feeling, but you can do it, and it is a small price to pay for avoiding an ulcer.

      In this chapter, you will find some personality traits described in an extreme way, nearly to the extent of caricature. You will rarely encounter people like that in reality, but what you may find are people that display a tendency towards one of the types to a greater or lesser extent.

      These sketches are meant to help you look at yourself and determine where your weak points lie, which might require a dose of Positive Thinking. So, take the sketches with a pinch of salt and use them as a guideline. There is no need to throw yourself under a train because you collected most of your points in the backstabbing section. If you do then it just shows that you are honest with yourself, and that, in turn, is going to help you become the better person that you really are.

      The Patroniser

      The male or female Patroniser has a clear-cut picture of the world in his or her head. Whatever they hear, see or experience, they manage to label unambiguously as either good or bad, right or wrong. Patronisers have made up their mind once and for all which items belong in which category, and that is that. The Patroniser does not worry about any grey zones between the black and white areas in life.

      Endowed with a loud voice, the Patroniser then proceeds to spread the gospel. Whether you want to hear it or not, the Patroniser will let you know what his or her opinion is on any given subject. If you have ever been to hospital you will recall that bossy nurse who stomps into your room at 5 a.m. to take your temperature, booming, ‘Aren’t we lazy? Still asleep! Come now, Mr Winterbottom, open your mouth!’ And if you want to know what these new tablets are that she has just given you, she will look at you reproachfully and reply, ‘Now we must follow doctor’s orders, mustn’t we, Mr Winterbottom?’ In other words, she is putting you in your place because, according to her book, the patient is not allowed to question the doctor’s (or her) authority, and that’s what you have just been doing.

      Note also the permanent use of ‘we’ instead of ‘you’. You are no longer a person in your own right and, anyway, nurse knows best, so she takes you under her matronly but infuriatingly patronising wing, integrating your person into her own. Thus, ‘we’ is born.

      Criticism comes hard and fast with Patronisers, and it is not always constructive. Even though they have good ideas, people tend to reject their suggestions