/ By Josefina “Ndeshi” Gabriel /
Everyone wants a better personality. We all picture ourselves on Fantasy Island, where the ringing of the mission bells transforms us into meticulously attired and attractive individuals. When the show is over we switch off our mindsets and resume our set patterns of life.
Or we rush off to personality-transforming courses, courses which promise to transform us into sparkling individuals within 24 hours of self-evaluation.
We seek for experiences that will make us get into sensitivity sessions, where we will feel our way into a fantastic future.
But no matter our human desire to be perfect or to be fantastic people like the people we see on TV or maybe even like our neighbours or colleagues at work, the reality is that we all have different abilities, and unique personalities, and we can’t be made to be the same.
Maybe if we were all identical eggs, and a giant mother-hen could warm us up at the same time and turn us into slick chicks and roving roosters overnight. That would be great. But as human beings we are all different.
We were all born with our own set of strengths and weaknesses and no magic formula works wonders for all of us until we recognize our uniqueness and appreciate it.
Each one of us was born with his or her own temperament, and personality traits; it is your raw material, your own kind of rock. Some of us are granite, some marble, some are sandstone. Our type of rock doesn’t change. So it is with our personality.
If only we could understand ourselves, know what we are made of, know who we really are, know why we react as we do, know our strengths and how to amplify them, know our weaknesses too and how to overcome them, then we will be better people.
So, be who you are, and stand firm on your rock.
Of course we do need to change where it is necessary. We have to change our habits, attitudes and behavior if such are not good.
But our temperament and our personality traits which make us who we truly are cannot be changed because they were made by our Creator so that we can be different but beautiful and interesting people.
We are all different; some people are sanguine, some choleric, some melancholy and some are phlegmatic. We cannot change these four personality temperaments because they are like rocks on which we stand as individual people on earth.
Just take note that there is only one you in the whole world.
