personalities – Sillyfrog's Blog

Yesterday, I brought up a video during a conversation that had impacted my understanding of people many years ago. I was talking with my mother and sister. I’ve always had the feeling that we each found the other’s temperament a little ‘off putting’.

If you have 20 minutes to give the video below, it may help you to understand others better. That odd, ‘off balance’, feeling we can have even with people we love (and/or like) might have an explanation. [The video is quite entertaining too!]

People are FAR more than their temperaments, but our temperaments are quite a baseline measure of how we approach life.
The varying approaches of individuals are fascinating, often maddening, to us. It’s nice to consider that we aren’t just ‘doing it wrong’. We may be approaching everything with different expectations.

I think this guy (Mark Gungor) pretty much nails down the ways we vary by temperament.
I was a person from “Fun Country” sitting in the same room with my sister, from “Peace Country” and my mother, from “Perfect Country”. [BTW… I married a man from “Control Country”.]

If asked, I believe we would all admit that we’ve had moments when our understanding of each other was strained. Recognizing our differences at the elemental temperamental level gives me a better plan for making myself understood to them… and behaving more patiently while trying to understand them.

So, I ask, “Might our temperaments cause misunderstanding?”

I think so. Enjoy!

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “wallpaper.” Use it however you’d like. Have fun!
This prompt was one I almost didn’t join.
“What am I going to do with that?”, I thought. Then a song started echoing in my head accompanied by a vision of the bold flower-patterned wallpaper from the 1950s and 1960s.
The song is Flowers on the Wall by the Statler Brothers. I hope you take a moment to enjoy it posted below.
Well, upon listening to the song lyrics, I found out that I have more to opine about.
Where do people ‘get off’ telling others how to behave?!
During the pandemic, my sensitivity to such things was understandably overwhelmed. When the nosy Karens pursued mask and vaccine ‘offenders’ as if they were terrorists, I wanted to scream into a pillow. (Just so ya know, your safety, in a FREE country, is singly your own responsibility.) Here’s an aerial view of Woodstock during the 1968-1969 Hong Kong Flu pandemic. What’s happened to us?

But I’d like to get back to the meaning that I found specifically in the song lyrics.
Have you heard people tell shy people to speak up? Or thin people to eat more? Or anxious people to just relax? I have. How about suggestions like, ‘homebodies’ should travel more, or ‘bookworms’ ought to clear their cluttered bookcases? The list is endless.
I can only imagine that that level of ignorance comes from a very narrow and self-centered world view. I’m sure these self-appointed ‘advisors’ most often mean well but their failure to grasp the concept of individuality is still maddening.
There are 7.79+ billion individuals on our planet. And here’s the shocker, there are the same number of viewpoints (aka personalities). [I’ve noticed that the people who truly grasp this concept, seldom see the need to compare themselves to others.]
Diversity according to culture, race, or any other superficial subgroup, cannot compete with that. Yes… I do secretly laugh at people who dwell on immutable or circumstantial diversity.

So, the benign prompt of “wallpaper” moved me into a rant. Who knew that was possible?

Time for a favorite saying as I cool off, “Mind your own business, folks, and one day you may have a business of your own.” LOL

Have your own kind of wonderful Saturday everyone!