Personalities
Sometimes, rather than doing a dry old inventory, take a cluster of related patterns of belief, thinking, and behaviour and devise a personality who embodies them.
Victor Meldrew. Motto: 'I don't believe it!'
(Victor Meldrew is the archetypical 'angry old man' to whom everything goes wrong. Youtube 'One Foot In The Grave'.)
Impatient
Intolerant
Cold
Harsh
Cutting
Sarcastic
Believes others are wrong, stupid, sick, or bad
Interrupts
Repeats
Over-explains
Patronises
Tells off
Ridicules
Shames
Wants to get rid of other people as quickly as possible
Procrustean (trying to force people to fit a template)
Neurotic Nelly. Motto: 'The sky is falling!'
Constantly scanning all areas of responsibility and life
Never in the moment
Looks for problems
If there are no problems, adjusts the settings to identify more minor/distant ones ...
... with the result that things are never 'OK'
Thinks about the problems
Schemes, plots, and plans fixes and mitigations
Feels powerless
Feels paralysed
Views all problems as unsolvable
Feels sorry for self as a result
Over-organises self
Over-organises other people
Never allowed to stop and enjoy things
Believes rest and relaxation are possible only once everything is sorted out
Believes that everything must be under control at all times
Feels guilty and ashamed when it is not
Views other people as tools to achieve control
Complete control is required to feel security
Prosecutor General. Motto: 'You are charged with the following offences!'
Finds the fault in any situation
Interested in what is wrong in the community, in society, in the world ...
... in the past, now, and in the future
Feels personally threatened and attacked by those who are different
Demonises anyone who is different
Believes everyone is getting everything wrong
Develops narratives to distort and exaggerate the wrong
Accusatory
Shrill
Verbose
Self-righteous
Stakhanovite: Motto: 'The devil makes work for idle fingers!'
(Stakhanovite: Term for worker in the former Soviet Union who was exceptionally hard-working and productive)
Has to fill every moment of the day with constructive activity
Impatient with inefficiency or ineffectiveness of self or others
'Breakeven' is a day of maximum usefulness
Anything less than that is failure
Has numerous roles, each of which must be fulfilled perfectly
Even fulfilling one of them perfectly would be impossible
Trying to fulfil all of them perfectly is all the more impossible
So the system is built to fail
Constantly torn between competing demands
Feels in a state of constant guilt, shame, and urgency
Does not stop except to pass out
Rests or relaxes only rarely
On those occasions feels guilty and defensive
Equates human worth, identity, and purpose with output and productivity
Feels contempt for the bumbling and idle whilst fearing that is what he is
Feels existence and life are futile and uses work to mask this perception
Princess Parfait. Motto: 'I just want everything to be nice!'
Isn’t parfait but needs everyone else to be
Gets things done through wiliness and brute force and wonders why no one else does the same
Rhetorical question: why doesn’t everyone else love perfection as much as she does?
Obsessed with efficiency to maximise free time, but doesn’t have any hobbies
Struggles with basic laws of physics: gravity, entropy, chaos and the ineluctable passage of time
Believes herself unfairly singled out for inconvenience, setback, and others’ incompetence
Fondly recalls a childhood dollhouse where everything was nice all the time, yet nothing was alive
Wants to be left alone but is lonely
Views others as broken keys to the locks on doors to empty rooms:
They almost never behave as they’re supposed to ...
... and even when they behave as they’re supposed to, nothing of substance is achieved
Secretly knows that her dreams of perfection will never come true
As a result, often drops into depression and despair
The solution
Find out what your personalities are. Name them. Describe them. Have fun.
Get to know them, spot them when they arise, say 'Now, now!', and quietly step back to the character that God would have us fulfil:
'Go slowly, rest in God often, claim the power to work miracles in the lives of people, do everything in order, go slowly from task to task, rest and pray between duties.' (Don P)
Live in principles, not personalities: that is what having 'character' means.