Trading Places...

I have so much to do today, I haven’t time to think up something to write about. I went to Robbie’s journal again this morning, and she had posted a new question from her "Game of Life and Love."

If you could adopt one personality trait from someone you know, what would you take, and from whom?

My first thought was, "Oh, this will be quick and easy to write…" But now, I’m not so sure.

The first thing that immediately popped into my mind, was a trait that my husband, my older sister, and my former best friend all have in common. I’m not sure how to put it into words, though. Any one of the three of them would rather walk barefoot through hot coals than have an emotional confrontation. In any emotionally-fraught situation, they will be the ones who appear cool, calm, and controlled.

This is the exact opposite of myself. I am a completely transparent person. If I am feeling something, at the very least, it is expressed plainly in my eyes and body language, if not verbally. There is nothing of guile or pretense about me…there never has been. When I was very young, I actually cherished this part of my personality. I thought of it as a deep-seated honesty, a natural gift of integrity.

As I grew older, I came to realize what a pain in the ass it is. Emotional transparency is NOT a blessing. For one thing, it makes one too vulnerable. I began to find out that there are people out there that get ahead in life by perceiving other people’s emotional flash-points, and exploiting them. In other words, they find out what your buttons are, and then they manipulate you by pushing them. I can’t begin to think how many times I’ve fallen into THAT trap.

And, I began to learn that it’s not always appropriate to express one’s feelings about every little thing. It gets you absolutely nowhere in the business world. But, when something is as natural to you as breathing, it’s very hard to keep it in check. I’ve never mastered the art of the poker face, and when I care deeply about something, I just CAN’T keep my mouth shut. It was when I began suffering for my "lack of guile" that I started coveting the "control" that my husband, friend and sister all shared.

Now, another twenty years or so down the road, I’ve come to realize that their inability to express themselves emotionally is as much a burden as my inability NOT to. All of them, now in middle age, have health problems, that I attribute directly to their "emotional reserve." Those feelings have to go somewhere, and when you "stuff" them, they will eat you up from the inside out. I firmly believe this.

AND, the three of them tend to be…well…doormats. In order to avoid confrontation, they’ll quietly go along with other people’s ideas, calmly cooperate with the status quo, bend to the will of the strongest individual on the team… NEVER speak up for themselves. I would HATE to be like that. I don’t think their emotional reserve has served them any better, in the long run, than my emotional transparency has served me.

So, I didn’t really answer the question, did I? Actually, maybe I did. At this stage in my life, I can see how adopting a personality trait from someone else would cause me to give up something of myself. And, while it would certainly solve some problems in my life, it would probably bring with it a whole set of new ones, with which I am ill-equipped to cope. For better or worse, I guess I’ll just have to live with what I have!