Ever wondered why some of you are loud and noisy, desiring of public approval to the point of needing it, while others are quiet and reserved almost loathing public attention, wanting nothing whatsoever, to do with it? That, my friend, has to do with your temperament.
I once read a book by Tim La Haye “Why you act the way you do”. This book helps readers to discover how temperaments affect their work, emotions, spiritual life and relationships and helps us learn how to make improvements.
The book speaks of four predominant personality types i.e. Sanguine, Choleric, Melancholic and Phlegmatic; personality types which we possess in different proportion with one being predominant in each of us as life generally is; opposites attract.
To give a brief; the Sanguine is very social and outgoing, very touchy and is the least disciplined of all temperaments. The Choleric is strong willed, active, extroverted, quick tempered and impatient, s/he is a visionary, very practical, confident and decisive. The Melancholic appears sad and gloomy, is very meticulous and very analytical in their approach to life while the Phlegmatic has an unemotional and stolidly calm disposition. They are unassuming, agreeable and intuitive. They possess the ability of web thinking i.e. to see the relationship between many bits of data they collect
Understanding these personality traits make us aware of our predisposition and help us to know how we can improve ourselves and how to relate with others. It can be very frustrating and very wild to accommodate your significant other if they are pushing you to be something you’re not particularly comfortable with.
You will find in a couple, one is very outgoing while the other is reserved and calculating. Understanding the temperaments behind this helps you not to strain your relationship. I can imagine a choleric would get very frustrated with a Sanguine who was very excited to start on a project but suddenly is not incentivized to carry it through, to the end. What do you mean? We started this well, we have to finish it just as energized they would say.
Understanding how different we are would help in the disposition of duties and how best we could complement each other. I would suggest to my readers that they go grab themselves a copy of the book “Why you act the way you do” and just delve into it if you haven’t. It will unravel to you a whole new world of revelation.
Until we speak again, I am your host Mitchell Odhiambo. Welcome to a man’s new world. To get a female perspective on this topic, check out Mercy’s post HERE
