Encountering 5 Personality Types Revitalized Me Into a Better Person
Life-changing lessons I learned from these amazing personalities
It’s been 510 days (while writing this article) since I encountered any person other than my old-fashioned relatives, bitter neighbours, and friends in person or online. The realization of the gap of a year of interaction with any stranger or making new friends has brought me to think about the other aspects of being or not being with someone.
“Sometimes you gotta take a break from all the noise to appreciate the beauty of silence.” — Robert Tew.
I actually got the space to observe what’s happening around me and what had happened formerly. It forced me to think about who would I have become if I had other companionship.
The shots of quarantines were undoubtedly stressful — that it was the sole year I had been many times a victim of stress, anxiety, and depression. But a break from the external world offered me a chance to glance at it the way it is, without moulding and adjusting myself through.
The Influence of Vicinity
“Attitude is greatly shaped by influence and association.” — Jim Rohn
When I was a little girl, I used to be shy and introverted, who never raised her hand in class, never participated in any event, and was afraid to make new friends.
When I was in high school, I was the naughtiest and disturbing that my math teacher has ever gotten, and he was always behind me, rebuking. I had never felt ashamed of the mischief I did, quarrelled and debated against every time to prove my worth.
Progress is impossible without change.
As of now, I’m not again the same as I was in high school or as a little girl. I’m not the person who disapproves, tries to defeat, complains about not having something, or quarrel to prove my point.
I’m not someone who doesn’t get sad living a lazy and unhealthy life.
After such epiphany, I now know the importance of reflecting upon myself — the people I associate with, the things I do with them, and the content I consume through them. It gives me deep insights into critical aspects of my life and helps me revitalize an ideal persona.
In such a motley disguised world, it is hard to realize who we are, whereas easy to accept what other people perceive of us, and we become a wax that can mould into any shape. Since the calm and serene break, I have changed a lot, and I honestly admire the way I’m today. Of course, it couldn’t have been possible without the influence of other personalities.
“Life is beautiful, not because of the things we see or do. Life is beautiful because of the people we meet.” — Simon Sinek.
There are diverse personalities that are out of the way to define. I’ve encountered these remarkable five personalities, whose behaviour, no matter sweet or bitter, helped me become better than before. Also, I make sure to give importance and inspect who I stay with as it helps me improve and grow.
1. The Extroverts
I had many extrovert friends, most confident, and dared to raise their hands for opportunities. Being with extrovert friends in high school never made me feel fear of anything.
The deems of happiness and smile despite obstacles always reflected upon their faces. They were (kind of) always straight to the point, never afraid to approach or ask for help. Most apparently, it reflects they have the power to grab opportunities despite the circumstances.
Being with them, I learned — If you do not raise your hand to ask for something, it will always be a ‘No’.
The reason I might have missed tons of opportunities to grab at school is all because I rarely raised my hand. With bookish-inactive-nerds, I became someone intensely engrossed in studying, unaffected by other activities.
I had never realized how crucial communication is for any person, and it could eventuate only when I leave the lush of a comfort zone of being engrossed in studying. Studying like a nerd is good but only up to if it is not affecting other aspects of your life.
The use of consuming all the bookish concepts is useless until it brings about individuals values.
Conclusively, it’s not that extroverts are the best, the confident, and the winners of every event, or you should never miss the chance to hang out with them. It’s also not true that introverts are cunning, unfriendly, or boring. Every personality is unique and put forth the best out of them, and that’s an incredible opportunity we get to learn from them.
2. The Introverts
Initial to my first quarantine, I was depressed miserably. Nothing was working according to the plan that I made after high school.
I was not going to go to college, make new acquaintances, build valuable connections, and learn from them. Also, I lost touch with many of my (extrovert) friends and fell into miserable trauma. Losing such a connection that I was proud to be in took away the overconfident cynic with itself, and I found myself entirely vacant.
Astonishingly, after a few months, I reunited with one of my introverted friends, who were a little shy and tranquil boy. Being with him for quite a while, I realized this boy had a very handful of friends, but the very good ones.
He taught me the importance of having a small yet powerful group of people.
“Having few true friends is better than having a large network of pretentious friends. Quality beats quantity all the time!” — Unknown.
When I was in an intense trauma, that introverted guy taught me to look after the brighter sides of the loneliness. He asked me to question myself about who I am and what defines me? Does living with a certain kind of people that holds confidence in them define me?
Of course, no!
After reflecting upon such questions, it changed my entire identity. I could never have imagined myself a writer today — who holds the potential to change anything or anyone just with their sharp-edged words. I could have never had the chance:
- To improve through self-introspection
- To be a little loyal to me
- To pay attention to self-improvement and self-growth
- To reflect upon the people I stayed with
“People inspire you, or they drain you. Pick them wisely.” – Hans F. Hasen.
While living with extroverts made me confident and sociable, connecting with introverts made me self-aware and self-reliant.
3. The Toxics
Whenever the concept of toxic knocks on, it always brings about a deep muse, and an inner conflict arises that utters whether I’m pretending to be a non-toxic person.
Toxic people are always perceived as the bad of all people, and you should always stay away from them. Because they are toxic — negative, pessimist, jealous, judgemental, liars, fake, and so on.
But the truth here is, toxicity always stays within us. We do complain sometimes. We negotiate negative talks. We hate it when things go wrong. We judge. We fake. We lie. We also get out of control sometimes.
To avoid the negative impacts of toxicity, you may pretend to be non-toxic. To cover up toxicity, you may also try to be positive and surprisingly, you become ‘toxic positive’.
In the book, A subtle art of not giving a f*ck, Mark Manson says, “The desire for a more positive experience is itself a negative experience. And, paradoxically, the acceptance of one’s negative experience is itself a positive experience.
Whereas very few can expect any lesson from toxic people, I was among them. These toxic people taught me: What we perceive as positive is not always positive and vice versa.
There are an unimaginable amount of videos, articles, blogs, and self-help gurus that say to stay positive always. But what I realized about being positive is I avoided solving problems or reflecting upon them. I became too self-affirmative that the solution for every obstacle was merely repeating affirmations and not untangling them.
The more you think of positivity, the more positive experience you crave, and it will increase your inner void immensely.
Life is hard. We know that already. Despite expecting everything to go smoothly and hurdle-free, expect yourself to face the challenge. Make yourself strong enough. Make yourself a problem-solver, not a problem-skipper.
4. The Action-Oriented
We all have goals and dreams that we want to fulfil. But sometimes, the sand of stress and depression covers up the whole castle.
We do not feel enough energy to work. We do not feel the necessity to do. We do not get the motivation to move on and that is when we find motivational videos to be very helpful. But that’s a temporary solution which cannot keep us motivated 24x7.
Besides, sometimes the temporary solutions of dosing yourself with motivation become an addiction that is arduous to face.
Temporary solution never lasts long.
Since I’m a writer, I need an abundance of motivation to beat writer’s block and produce such type of content that resonates with my audience.
The temporary solution of keeping myself motivated through videos was once my way to defeat hindrance and dullness, which wasn’t helping much. When I realized I have gotten addicted to it, I swore got to deal with it.
I found associating with an action-oriented, fixed mindset, like-minded, definite and enthusiastically working people was unexpectedly helpful.
Those people taught me: If you need the motivation to do something, stop doing it. Wrap yourself nicely, be untouched. And get rusty.
Astonishingly, I found those people on social media platforms to whom I connect regularly. These people are perceived to be very energized, optimistic, and enthusiastically working regularly. Besides, they seem to be very organized and productive.
They know what to do, when to do it, and find better ways to do it. Associating with people who are well aware of themselves, plan everything, and organize their life according to their preferences, is what inspires me to work for my goals every day.
“Surround yourself with only people who are going to lift you higher.” — Oprah Winfrey.
I believe living with goal-oriented, action-oriented, and like-minded people is one of the essences of success. Because the company you keep in impacts and influence you the most. Associate with those who lift you up and avoid those who pull you down.
5. The Uninfluenced
In the virtual world of immensely influenced people, it’s easy to get fascinated by appearance, status, and materials. And sadly, it impacts our behaviour and affects how we interact or approach something.
One of the most critical decisions in the field of career I made was to become a Computer Science Engineer, influenced by so-called successful people. I was about to ruin my career and life, indulging in something I was entirely unaware and uninterested in.
I was someone who loved journaling, putting her thoughts in a unicorn diary, writing poetry and reciting them in front of my naive mother. And thankfully, here I am!
Most of the time, our decisions are based upon some great influences. For instance,
- You decide to wake up at 5 am because someone influenced you with their charming workout upshot.
- You choose Computer Science Major because someone influenced you with their earning and miraculous lifestyle.
- You decide to pursue something because someone influenced you with their results.
And so on. Your choices are massively influenced by who you are with and what you consume.
Being INFLUENCED results in what you are today, whereas being an INFLUENCER is what you want to become.
Humans have to be influencers among themselves, but certainly in a good way. Only the right kind of people can teach you to choose the right people to influence you. And those are the uninfluenced/unbiased people who do not make biased decisions or get easily influenced by rhinestones.
They don’t change appearances, hair colours, and decisions influenced by some fake or so-called influencers.
The uninfluenced people taught me: Do not let anyone influence you in such a way that it turns you/your decision into someone/something else.
We live in a world where being influenced is the easiest and can shape you in an unexpected good/bad way. So always choose or surrounded yourself with the influence you expect to receive from this world and its people.
“The key to successful leadership today is influence, not authority.” — Ken Blanchard.
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