Character is what you are in the dark. – D. L. Moody
Chuks is a six year old vibrant young chap. The easiest way to identify him in a lot is his remarkably warm smile. There is no minute of his active day that is spent in quiet – he is so energetic. His high spirit has often puzzled his parents - who are both very calm and easy going people; one may wonder where he got it from or if probably they are inborn.
Of course, there are a few other things that he learnt from his parents and the environment he is exposed to which includes his polite demeanour, appreciation for books and obedience to his parents.
Now there is Jeffery another 6 year old who stays in one of the more rugged parts of Warri (Southern Nigeria). Equally hyper-active for the most part of his day, he is not so warm and can be quite aggressive. He walks around town with his crew of youngsters invading parties and robbing unsuspecting people of their belongings.
It was Jeffery who was seen exchanging words and hurling stones at a wedding planner for chasing him and his cronies from one of the weddings they had crashed.Chuks and Jeffery two 6 year olds, both with a vibrant personality yet with different characters – this introduces us to the discussion on personality and character formation.
Personality
A person's personality refers to the base activity or habitual traits on which a person's character is formed. There have been several broad classifications of people's personalities. Here are a few of these classifications:
Introverts – quiet and easy going; often very gentle and not given to much speech. The individual may be shy and not quick to socialize.
Extroverts – outspoken, aggressive and often domineering in their approach. They can easily walk up to a stranger and strike up a conversation. They are self confident.
There is the more popular classification into four groups:
Phlegmatic – unenergetic and indifferent; calm and unconcerned
Melancholic – gentle and unexcited
Choleric – a bit aggressive, assertive and irritable
Sanguine – optimistic, cheerful and rash
We will be looking more closely into another form of classification proposed by Insights Discovery (developed by Insights Learning and Development based in Scotland. It is based on the theories of Carl Gustav Jung who published his work in his 1921 book, 'Psychological Types'). It is easier to remember, understand and apply. These classifications are: fiery red, cool blue, earth green and sunshine yellow.
For each of them we are going to look at their good day manifestations (or what we will regard as their positive traits) and their bad day manifestations (or negative traits).
Fiery Red: On a good day, they are:
just
Determined – They have a goal and they pursue it relentlessly. Once their heart is set to accomplish a task, they are not satisfied until is it accomplished.
Focused – They are not easily distracted. They could be reading and you walk into the room, yet their eyes will remain pinned on the book as though no one walked in; that is how focused they can get.
Proactive – They anticipate issues and plan appropriately for them. They do not wait for things to go wrong before they act.
Courageous – They are usually the leaders of the pact. Quick to run with an idea regardless of the likely dangers.
Purposeful – They make up their minds on what to do and do it anyways. They do not just go about the day beating the wind.
On a bad day they are:
Overly direct – It is easy to hear them say to another person that they just met that the person has an odour. It is not said out of rudeness but the words just come out. They do not try to sugar-coat things, they say it as it comes to their head.
Dismissing others' opinions – They tend to be domineering in the team or class not considering other people's opinions. When they get into arguments, no matter how logical your points are, they will never agreed with you.
Being coercive and controlling – They tend to be manipulative. Trying to get their way at every instance.
Making rash decisions – They are quick to make decisions not taking time to consider the pros and cons.
Taking over – They can be quite impatient and this often leads them to take over assignments given to others. If you are asked to walk in a team with them and they feel you are slowing them down, they may just push you away to do the work themselves.
Cool Blue: On a good day, they are:
Diligent – Hardworking. They do not shy away from work. When you commit a duty to them especially when it is something they are passionate about, they follow it through with hard work.
Consistent – They are not the type to start something and stop half-way. They see things through to the end. They are equally not double-faced.
Thoughtful – They are very considerate and not rash in their decisions.
Principled – They are very principled, even in their relationships they tend not to be too sentimental.
Objective – They think in terms of set goals and steps to achieving them.
On a bad day, they are:
Over analysing – They tend to over think situations trying to figure out every detail.Getting stuck in intellectual deadlock – They can be quite academic in their approach.
Adhering rigidly to protocol – They can be too formal and bureaucratic.
Nit-picking – Making a big deal of trivial issues and errors.
Drowning in detail – Seeking out too many details and getting overburdened by them.
Earth Green: On a good day, they are:
Appreciative – Very thankful and grateful when you do them a favour.
Respectful – Graceful and polite in their relations.
Valuing – They esteem people showing their importance to them at every curve.
Service oriented – They think in terms of service. How can they help people?
Accommodating – They are very hospitable and kind, willing to share the little they have. They are patient and can withstand a nasty behaviour without being aggressive.
On a bad day they are:
Not taking a stand – It is sometimes difficult for them to take sides in an argument even when they know one party is right.
Trying to please everyone – They are people pleasers, and tend to do this at the expense of principles.
Losing direction – They can easily be distracted or derailed by people or circumstances.
Being indecisive – They walk into a shop and may circle an isle over and over trying to decide on a pair of shoe. They are easily swayed by friends.
Being submissive – Non-argumentative nor assertive even when they are in the right.
Sunshine Yellow: On a good day, they are:
Empowering – By default, they seek out ways to help you become better and more independent.
Engaging – They are warm and enjoy getting others to talk. They are more interested in enjoying the conversation and getting you to talk rather than dominating the discussion.
Encouraging – Like the sun, they light up the room putting a smile on your face when you are dampened. They charge you up with their excitement.
Adaptable – They can easily fit into an environment regardless of how unusual it is.
Dynamic – They are not so predictable. They can be glamorous.
On a bad day, they are:
Over-involving others – They want everybody
to be a part thereby dragging a project unduly.
Getting sidetracked – They get easily derailed. One minute they can be reading a book the next minute, they want to see a movie.
Lacking focus – They are not able to concentrate on a particular thing for too long. They are the types that after a few minutes of reading, they want to jump to the next activity.
Losing interest – They get easily bored during ceremonies. They are the types that are found pressing their phones during church service because they feel an activity has taken too long. This trait makes it difficult for them to burn the candles to achieve a milestone event.
Everyone has a bit of all these personality traits in them. But in most cases two of them are quite visible with one being the most dominant. It is just like the dominant and recessive gene you were taught about in your secondary school Biology.
You cannot classify yourself as having a particular personality indicator by one independene found pressing their phones during church service because they feel an activity has taken too long. This trait makes it difficult for them to burn the candles to achieve a milestone event.
Everyone has a bit of all these personality traits in them. But in most cases two of them are quite visible with one being the most dominant. It is just like the dominant and recessive gene you were taught about in your secondary school Biology.
You cannot classify yourself as having a particular personality indicator by one independent action. You need to holistically consider the things you do often, and based on that, you may consider yourself as majorly having a particular personality type. I remember the first time I learnt about these personality indicators during an offsite job training.
The facilitator at the event told me that from his observation of me for the past two days of the training session he can clearly say that my dominant trait-set is a cool blue. This was further confirmed by a close colleague of mine who attended a similar training.
It is important to identify your major trait-set (or personality type) early. This will help you understand yourself and why you do some things in a particular way. It will equally help you to watch out for weak areas (bad day manifestations) and proactively improve on them.
It is also good to know the personality types of those around you especially those who you spend most of your time with like your teachers, classmates and family members. This is one of the keys to successful relationships. When you know how they are, you know what to expect during their good and bad days. That way, you will not be taken by surprise by a sudden outburst. It generally helps you to parley people.
The question that may puzzle you at this point is how do you get to know your personality trait? There are people who are trained on how to properly classify people under different personality traits; you may engage their service if you can afford it. On the other hand you may use the few guides mentioned above as a pointer or ask those close to you to help classify you using the above tips. There are online tools available which can be very useful in this regard.
Character Formation
While some believe that aspects of a child's character may be inborn and hereditary, most research have shown that the character of a child is mainly formed by external forces. Child psychologists say that a child perceives and learns from as early as their first month of birth.Their primary source of learning are their parents/guardians and those in the environment they are exposed to. They learn from the songs, words and actions of those around them. Their rate of learning may differ but they learn whatever they are exposed to. At this point they are not able to choose what they learn but like a sponge they absorb anything around.
As they grow older into becoming a year and more, they begin to unconsciously merge these characters with their personality to define their unique identity.There is actually nothing the individual can do at this point in their life as the onus lie on the parents or guardians to help filter the information absorbed by their wards. But as these toddlers grow into adolescence, they become more aware.
From the early ages of eight and above, the youngster may be absolved from the responsibility of what they choose but they are not absolved from the consequences. Parents remain fully responsible for their children as they are still expected to help guide their character and filter the information they take in. But the youngster must recognise that they are the ones who bear the major impact of the results of their action.
Life will not excuse your failure in school because you were groomed by parents who did not fancy reading. We get that between ages 0 – 7 you were too young to think for yourself but not anymore. You are in secondary school or beyond now and you have to start waking up to responsibilities.
Character build-up starts from simple actions. For example choosing to eat a large chunk of food; gradually, it becomes a habit - you cannot eat small portions of food, soon it becomes a character and everyone starts to call you that person with the voracious appetite.
As a young conscious person, you must begin to pay attention to your habits. Those we know today as drug addicts were never like that. It all started with a simple action. Anything that you do not want to be formed into your character, should be avoided. The day you disrespect that elderly person is the day you start your journey into being a disrespectful person.
You need to stop seeing actions as one-offs and start seeing them for what they truly are and that is, the building blocks of character traits.Actions like we know soon graduate to habits. The word habit shares the same root word as habitat (referring to the dwelling place of an organism – where an organism feels most comfortable in). Habit refers to the actions that you feel most comfortable displaying. Actions that you have done too many times that you seem to carry out unconsciously.
If actions are building blocks then habits are the different sections of the building that make up the house (which of course stands for your character).
Character traits do not just appear from space, they are built in you by your parents/guardians, the environment and the people around, your playmates and those you spend the most time with, as well as by personal decisions. Negative and positive character traits are built up alike; that is from simple actions, to habits then it becomes your character.
You should note though that it takes a little more effort to build up positive character traits than negative ones. This can be attributed to a lot of reasons (the world system magnifies negative traits; most societies today are governed by negative elements – corruption, stealing, lying; and these are the elements that most young people are exposed to). In addition there are little conscious efforts by the society to impart positive virtues on the growing populace. These young ones grow up seeing much evil, so much so, that they have to deal with the challenge of unlearning these negatives. Unlearning a negative habit or giving up a negative character is very difficult and in some cases it may require the help of a counsellor.
Positive Character Traits
The list of positive character traits is not exhaustive but here are a few important ones:
Respect – One thing a lot of people seem to be unaware of is that respect begets respect. Most young people move around with this air of arrogance expecting people to treat them as adults and to respect them. But the easiest way to earn respect is to show respect to everyone you come in contact with. Respect just like every other character trait that will be discussed here is not dependent on the other person. It is a wrong notion to think that the way you behave towards people is dependent on how they perceive or treat you. Rather, the way you relate with people should stem from who you are. So if someone insults you, you should refrain from insulting the person not because of who the person is but because of who you are – you are a responsible and respectful person who does not throw insults at people. Period!
Politeness – Have you ever heard people say that "I have a very bad mouth?" It is a phrase we use to boast about how rude we can be to someone. This is one of the many statements we use to describe bad character traits that we seem to be proud to possess. We like to say it with such passive words in order to mask the true nature of that negative trait. There is nothing like being bad mouthed, you are simply rude and you need to change. There is nothing appealing about someone who is not polite. You may be very pretty but your rude utterances will chase people miles away from you. A character trait that is close to rudeness is being snobbish. It has the same effect, the major difference is that a snob uses his/her behaviour to communicate what a rude person uses his/her words to do.
Kindness – When you do something for someone with the hope of being repaid, that is not kindness; that is a business transaction. Kindness starts from your willingness to do and then proceeds to the act of doing something good for someone. Humans generally have insatiable wants, which means at every point in time, whatever you have you can use it for your personal benefit. It takes a heart of kindness and spirit of sacrifice to give out of the limited that you have. But kindness is not limited to giving money or material goods; it extends to giving intangible things. For example helping someone study for an examination; helping a lady you do not know to push her car out of a ditch; paying for a young boy's transportation – these are all acts of kindness. The rules guiding kindness are that it must come from your heart and you must not be expecting something in return for that act of kindness. This is not to say that someone may not reward you in some future time for that action but you should not expect a reward at the time of your doing.
Benevolence – This is a subset of kindness. It is the act of giving tangible things to people especially those who do not have the ability at the moment to repay you. This is the trait present in financial donors who through their foundations donate monies for different projects to benefit people that they do not know and that they may never meet in life. Being able to give is not a function of how much you have, it is a trait you have to build. You have to learn to give money, clothing and food stuffs and when you do not have to give outrightly, you can share. The key to living in abundance is giving – as illogical as it seems it is true. People often say their desire to be prudent and not a spend thrift is one major reason why they do not give. But nothing can be farther from the truth than that; your benevolence does not stop you from being prudent with your expenditure. No one is saying you should not save, neither are we saying that you should give everything you have. Your rule when you receive money should be to save some, invest some, spend some and give some – that is the best way to live.
Loyalty – This is one concept that is not commonly seen amongst young people especially in Africa. It is not difficult to see youngsters change friends on meeting a richer or more influential person. How about the many that have changed churches because they were offended by the pastor or feel the church is not exciting enough? The question I ask is this, if those young people in your new church have not made the place exciting, will you have gone there? This is not to say if you have genuine reasons to change worship centres (like doctrinal variances; change of location) you should not. Most often than not we are not so committed to a thing or idea as to either see it become better or die with it. Loyalty means total commitment to a person, idea or cause.
Humility – This is one of the scarcest character traits you will see around. In every human lies the desire to be regarded more highly than everyone else; your ability to override this desire results in humility. You have been created to have dominion over things and circumstances and not to be domineering over your fellow species. To live humbly, you have to be ever willing tosilence you ego. Humility does not make you inferior but shows you have a greater command of yourself. It is the true hallmark of leadership and success.
Honesty – The mobile phone era launched a lot of Nigerians into a higher realm of lying. Like someone comically remarked that, he was in a bus heading to Lagos, when he overheard a man tell someone on the other side of the phone that he was on his way to Abuja. This man lied so convincingly that he had to reconfirm from the driver where they were heading to. We have either lied at some point or heard someone lie on the phone about their whereabouts. How about those who in a bid to get money from their parents formulate a story about paying for fees that do not exist. I remember once a young lady asked me to help forge a payment receipt for a levy that never existed, just so she could get some extra money from her father. Honesty is quite scarce these days amongst young and old people alike. Somewhere in our heads we just feel that everyone lies once in a while so it is okay to join the train. Like some say, "a little lie doesn't hurt." That is not true. Lying is a vice and should be avoided every time. Even dubious people prefer relating with honest people. If you want people to trust you, you must earn their trust through honesty.
Diligence – There is a song I once heard titled 'the lazy song'. The writer talked about how he does not feel like doing anything on that day. The song echoes the feeling a lot of us get when we wake up each morning. As I write this I recall how I had to struggle to get out of bed this morning to get to the office before 7am. Most days we feel like being lazy, but should we entertain this feeling? No! History has never smiled on a lazy person. The writer of the 'lazy song' was not even lazy himself, he had to get out of bed, write the song and spend hours in the studio to ensure it comes out well enough to soothe your ears. Diligence refers to persistent hard-work – meaning it is not enough to work hard the previous day, you must keep at it. Everyone who have enjoyed any form of achievement – either in academics, entertainment, sports, business have all been diligent. The difference may be that due to their passion for that area of pursuit, they seemed to have enjoyed the work they were putting in. The truth remains that nothing comes to a lazy man except poverty and regrets.
Self discipline – Think about those times when you felt like taking that chicken wings even though you were on a diet; or seeing that extra episode even though you had an exam to write the next day. We all have experienced at least one time in our lives when we felt like doing something that we knew would have a negative effect on us at the long run but could not resist the desire to do them. Your ability to restrain yourself from doing that which you feel like for a greater good is self discipline. Often times called self control – your ability to control yourself and not have things control you. You may have heard someone yell at another to have 'a hang of himself' – he is simply asking the person to exercise some discipline over self. No matter how knowledgeable you are about life, your body will constantly seek to do things that will put your long term plans in jeopardy. Watch out for these seemingly harmless little actions and resist them. Resist that feeling to sleep all day; do not satisfy the urge to visit friends all weekend at the expense of your studies. A person who is easily controlled by his feelings will be easily controlled by every negative force.
Patience – In this jet age of supersonic speed, speed-lanes and fast-foods, patience is one rarely talked about virtue. No one wants to harbour the thought of waiting for something or someone. I recall the annoying feeling of waiting for an internet page to load while searching for information; at some point I was tempted to smash the phone against the wall. Yet in life there are some things that require you to wait patiently. Let us list a few of those things: queuing up in the bank awaiting your turn to be attended to; waiting at the bus park for your bus to get filled; waiting on an old lady to gradually descend the staircase before you start your descend (so that you do not frighten her). There are so many instances where you are expected to exercise patience and you must tutor yourself to do so. Patience is not a sign of weakness or fear but a show of self resilience.
Courteousness – This is very close to the concept of politeness but extends beyond words to actions. Helping a lady open the door; giving a bow to someone elderly as you greet them; politely excusing yourself from the person you are talking to in order to pick an urgent call; the list is endless. Courtesy rests on the golden rule of "do to others as you will have them do to you". Whenever you are about to take an action, spend a split second to think about how you will feel if you were the recipient of that action.
As a young person you must be conscious of these virtues and grow in them. It is true that due to our personality some character traits may be easier to attain. For example an introvert or cool blue may easily build up 'patience' as a character trait and a fiery red 'diligence'. Yet we should all strive to attain all these positive virtues as your personality should never be an excuse for your negative disposition.
Your appearance, connection or certificates may get you into a place but what keeps you there is your character. Your character is one element that you cannot hide unless you plan on staying in that environment for just a short period. You may be very good at pretending or putting up an act but it is just a matter of time before your true self is exposed.
Those of you, who are familiar with reality shows such as Big Brother and Survivor, will notice that often times during the first week, you seem to like everyone on the show. They all appear to be nice and friendly, but in a few weeks you start to see sides to them that you never thought were there. That is, their true selves begin to show.
A LITTLE BIBLE LESSON
Mark 3:14 - 19 tells us the names of the twelve disciples of Jesus Christ. Further study of the Bible reveals to us that they were of divers professions before Jesus called them. More than that, we see that they all had different personalities. For example Peter was assertive and was often times the most outspoken, yet we have the others whose names were scarcely mentioned like Bartholomew and Philip, you can guess that they seemed to be more reserve. We also know about Thomas who did not seem to believe easily until he sees proofs. Yet Jesus used all of these people and most of them became martyrs. The reason is simple, Jesus was showing us that no personality is superior to the other. Each one is important and the presence of diverse personalities help to create balance and if effectively managed, makes for an effective team.
Chapter Round Up
Personality is the foundation on which your character is formed. According to Insights Discovery, personality traits can be classified into: Fiery Red, Cool Blue, Earth Green, and Sunshine Yellow. Everyone has a bit of all these traits but in most people, one or two are most conspicuous.
Character refers to those habitual traits that are particular to you that have been formed over time. Positive character traits include: Respect, Politeness, Kindness, Benevolence, Loyalty, Humility, Honesty, Diligence, Self Discipline, Patience and Courteousness.
Chapter two (2)In a bit.....