Traits Of A Good Friend Quotes

This story ["The Depressed Person"] was the most painful thing I ever wrote. It's about narcissism, which is a part of depression. The character has traits of myself. I really lost friends while writing on that story, I became ugly and unhappy and just yelled at people. The cruel thing with depression is that it's such a self-centered illness - Dostoevsky shows that pretty good in his "Notes from Underground". The depression is painful, you're sapped/consumed by yourself; the worse the depression, the more you just think about yourself and the stranger and repellent you appear to others.

Be the girl you want your daughter to be. Be the girl you want your son to date. Be classy, be smart, be real, but most importantly be nice.

If you take a trait that by all appearances is a merit—a trait that is praised by pastors and poets, a trait that we have come to admire in our friends and hope to foster in our children—and you give it to some poor soul in abundance, it will almost certainly prove an obstacle to their happiness. Just as someone can be too smart for their own good, there are those who are too patient for their own good, or too hardworking.

A man worth being with is one… That never lies to you Is kind to people that have hurt him A person that respects another’s life That has manners and shows people respect That goes out of his way to help people That feels every person, no matter how difficult, deserves compassion Who believes you are the most beautiful person he has ever met Who brags about your accomplishments with pride Who talks to you about anything and everything because no bad news will make him love you less That is a peacemaker That will see you through illness Who keeps his promises Who doesn’t blame others, but finds the good in them That raises you up and motivates you to reach for the stars That doesn’t need fame, money or anything materialistic to be happy That is gentle and patient with children Who won’t let you lie to yourself; he tells you what you need to hear, in order to help you grow Who lives what he says he believes in Who doesn’t hold a grudge or hold onto the past Who doesn’t ask his family members to deliberately hurt people that have hurt him Who will run with your dreams That makes you laugh at the world and yourself Who forgives and is quick to apologize Who doesn’t betray you by having inappropriate conversations with other women Who doesn’t react when he is angry, decides when he is sad or keep promises he doesn’t plan to keep Who takes his children’s spiritual life very seriously and teaches by example Who never seeks revenge or would ever put another person down Who communicates to solve problems Who doesn’t play games or passive aggressively ignores people to hurt them Who is real and doesn’t pretend to be something he is not Who has the power to free you from yourself through his positive outlook Who has a deep respect for women and treats them like a daughter of God Who doesn’t have an ego or believes he is better than anyone Who is labeled constantly by people as the nicest person they have ever met Who works hard to provide for the family Who doesn’t feel the need to drink alcohol to have a good time, smoke or do drugs Who doesn't have to hang out a bar with his friends, but would rather spend his time with his family Who is morally free from sin Who sees your potential to be great Who doesn't think a woman's place has to be in the home; he supports your life mission, where ever that takes you Who is a gentleman Who is honest and lives with integrity Who never discusses your private business with anyone Who will protect his family Who forgives, forgets, repairs and restores When you find a man that possesses these traits then all the little things you don’t have in common don’t matter. This is the type of man worth being grateful for.

Very important people have told me that they prefer good listeners to good talkers, but the ability to listen seems rarer than almost any other good trait.

Dear Son, I would call you by name, but I’m waiting for your mother to decide. I only hope she is joking when she calls you Albert Dalbert. For weeks now I have watched your mother zealously gather her tokens for this box. She’s so afraid of you not knowing anything about her, and it bothers me greatly that you’ll never know her strength firsthand. I’m sure by the time you read this, you’ll know everything I do about her. But you’ll never know her for yourself and that pains me most of all. I wish you could see the look on her face whenever she talks to you. The sadness she tries so hard to hide. Every time I see it, it cuts through me. She love you so much. You’re all she talks about. I have so many orders from her for you. I’m not allowed to make you crazy the way I do your Uncle Chris. I’m not allowed to call the doctors every time you sneeze and you are to be allowed to tussle with your friends without me having a conniption that someone might bruise you. Nor am I to bully you about getting married or having kids. Ever. Most of all, you are allowed to pick your own car at sixteen. I’m not supposed to put you in a tank. We’ll see about that one. I refuse to promise her this last item until I know more about you. Not to mention, I’ve seen how other people drive on the roads. So if you have a tank, sorry. There’s only so much changing man my age can do. I don’t know what our futures will hold. I only hope that when all is said and done, you are more like your mother than you are like me. She’s a good woman. A kind woman. Full of love and compassion even though her life has been hard and full of grief. She bears her scars with a grace, dignity, and humor that I lack. Most of all, she has courage the likes of which I haven’t witnessed in centuries. I hope with every part of me that you inherit all her best traits and none of my bad ones. I don’t really know what more to say. I just thought you should have something of me in here too. Love, Your father (Wulf)

More than anything, I began to hate women writers. Frances Burney, Jane Austen, Elizabeth Browning, Mary Shelley, George Eliot, Virginia Woolf. Bronte, Bronte, and Bronte. I began to resent Emily, Anne, and Charlotte—my old friends—with a terrifying passion. They were not only talented; they were brave, a trait I admired more than anything but couldn't seem to possess. The world that raised these women hadn't allowed them to write, yet they had spun fiery novels in spite of all the odds. Meanwhile, I was failing with all the odds tipped in my favor. Here I was, living out Virginia Woolf's wildest feminist fantasy. I was in a room of my own. The world was no longer saying, "Write? What's the good of your writing?" but was instead saying "Write if you choose; it makes no difference to me.

Dear my strong girls, you will all go through that phase of life making a mistake of helping a toxic girl whose friendship with you turns into her self-interest. This kind of girls is a real burden towards the empowerment of other females as they can never get past their own insecurity and grow out of high-school-like drama. Despite how advanced we are in educating modern women, this type will still go through life living in identity crisis, endlessly looking for providers of any kind at the end of the day. They can never stand up for others or things that matter because they can't stand up for themselves. They care what everyone thinks only doing things to impress men, friends, strangers, everyone in society except themselves, while at the same time can't stand seeing other women with purpose get what those women want in life. But let me tell you, this is nothing new, let them compete and compare with you as much as they wish, be it your career, love or spirit. You know who you are and you will know who your true girls are by weeding out girls that break our girlie code of honor, but do me a favor by losing this type of people for good. Remind yourself to never waste time with a person who likes to betray others' trust, never. Disloyalty is a trait that can't be cured. Bless yourself that you see a person's true colors sooner than later. With love, your mama. XOXO

A genius must sometimes be a racist if we are to hope for elucidation. History is generously peppered with geniuses who despised the Jews, who dismissed the blacks, who objectified women. Are we to bury their great works because of this? The answer is a resounding no, we are not to. We are, all of us, human. We are, all of us, imperfect. Prejudice is evolutionarily implanted in our genes. We need to know The Tiger is a dangerous animal. We need not know that all tigers are not. Identifying the personalities of individual tigers does not serve our need to survive. Granted, it might make us more enlightened individuals and friends with some tigers, and I am all for that. I applaud that, but one must recognize that there is a tribal instinct in humans and it is at its base an instinct for survival. So accept that, mourn it, decry it, rail against it, but recognize it is a very human trait and have patience with it. Have compassion. Thank you and good night.

There were certain keys to being a good friend, chief among them loyalty, shared philosophy, and willing sacrifice, but Teig had learned that the most appreciated trait in a friend was knowing when to speak up and when to keep silent.

Many things in this period have been hard to bear, or hard to take seriously. My own profession went into a protracted swoon during the Reagan-Bush-Thatcher decade, and shows scant sign of recovering a critical faculty—or indeed any faculty whatever, unless it is one of induced enthusiasm for a plausible consensus President. (We shall see whether it counts as progress for the same parrots to learn a new word.) And my own cohort, the left, shared in the general dispiriting move towards apolitical, atonal postmodernism. Regarding something magnificent, like the long-overdue and still endangered South African revolution (a jagged fit in the supposedly smooth pattern of axiomatic progress), one could see that Ariadne’s thread had a robust reddish tinge, and that potential citizens had not all deconstructed themselves into Xhosa, Zulu, Cape Coloured or ‘Eurocentric’; had in other words resisted the sectarian lesson that the masters of apartheid tried to teach them. Elsewhere, though, it seemed all at once as if competitive solipsism was the signifier of the ‘radical’; a stress on the salience not even of the individual, but of the trait, and from that atomization into the lump of the category. Surely one thing to be learned from the lapsed totalitarian system was the unwholesome relationship between the cult of the masses and the adoration of the supreme personality. Yet introspective voyaging seemed to coexist with dull group-think wherever one peered about among the formerly ‘committed’. Traditionally then, or tediously as some will think, I saw no reason to discard the Orwellian standard in considering modern literature. While a sort of etiolation, tricked out as playfulness, had its way among the non-judgemental, much good work was still done by those who weighed words as if they meant what they said. Some authors, indeed, stood by their works as if they had composed them in solitude and out of conviction. Of these, an encouraging number spoke for the ironic against the literal mind; for the generously interpreted interest of all against the renewal of what Orwell termed the ‘smelly little orthodoxies’—tribe and Faith, monotheist and polytheist, being most conspicuous among these new/old disfigurements. In the course of making a film about the decaffeinated hedonism of modern Los Angeles, I visited the house where Thomas Mann, in another time of torment, wrote Dr Faustus. My German friends were filling the streets of Munich and Berlin to combat the recrudescence of the same old shit as I read: This old, folkish layer survives in us all, and to speak as I really think, I do. not consider religion the most adequate means of keeping it under lock and key. For that, literature alone avails, humanistic science, the ideal of the free and beautiful human being. [italics mine] The path to this concept of enlightenment is not to be found in the pursuit of self-pity, or of self-love. Of course to be merely a political animal is to miss Mann’s point; while, as ever, to be an apolitical animal is to leave fellow-citizens at the mercy of Ideolo’. For the sake of argument, then, one must never let a euphemism or a false consolation pass uncontested. The truth seldom lies, but when it does lie it lies somewhere in between.

They have been so much concerned with what they are going to say next that they do not keep their ears open. … Very important people have told me that they prefer good listeners to good talkers, but the ability to listen seems rarer than almost any other good trait.

Seeing the goodness in someone does not imply ignoring their difficult qualities or unskillful actions. Rather, we can fully acknowledge these difficulties, while at the same time we choose to focus on the positive. If we focus on the negative, we will naturally feel anger, resentment or disappointment. If we focus on the positive, we will forge a connection to the person. Then as we look at their negative traits or actions, we do it as their friend. If two friends are looking at such difficult things, they do so standing side by side. This mirroring quality, whereby we 'reteach a thing it's loveliness', is one of the greatest attributes of metta. The power of metta enables us to look at people and affirm the rightness of their wish to be happy; it affirms our oneness with them. The power of love reflects both to ourselves and others the manifold possibilities available in each moment.

Homewrecker" Every boyfriend is the one Until otherwise proven The good are never easy The easy never good And love it never happens like you think it really should Deception and perfection are wonderful traits One will breed love The other hate You'll find me in the lonely hearts Under 'I'm after a brand new start' And I don't belong to anyone They call me Homewrecker Homewrecker They call me Homewrecker Homewrecker Girls and their curls and their gourmet vomit Boys and their toys and their six inch rockets We're all very lovely 'til we get to know each other As we stop becoming friends and we start becoming lovers And I don't belong to anyone They call me Homewrecker Homewrecker (I'm only happy when I'm on the run) They call me Homewrecker Homewrecker (I broke a million hearts just for fun) They call me Homewrecker Homewrecker (I'm only happy when I'm on the run) They call me Homewrecker Homewrecker (I broke a million hearts just for fun) I'm only happy when I'm on the run I break a million hearts just for fun I don't belong to anyone I guess you could say that my life's a mess But I'm still looking pretty in this dress I'm the image of deception When everything is life and death You may feel like there's nothing left Instead of love and trust and laughter What you get is happy never after But deep down all you want is love The pure kind we all dream of But we cannot escape the past So you and I will never last 'Cause I'm a Homewrecker Homewrecker (I'm only happy when I'm on the run) 'Cause I'm a Homewrecker Homewrecker (I broke a million hearts just for fun) 'Cause I'm a Homewrecker Homewrecker (I'm only happy when I'm on the run) 'Cause I'm a Homewrecker Homewrecker (I broke a million hearts just for fun) 'Cause I'm a Homewrecker Homewrecker

That’s why time-friendly people tend to make fewer emotional commitments than my friend Bernard does. They have a profound understanding of how much time it takes to be there for someone, so they think, deliberate, and pray long and hard before they decide to invest in a relationship. You might think they’re aloof or uncaring. They’re not. They are, instead, unwilling to write bad checks, emotionally speaking. Another friend, Pamela, recently passed the time test with flying colors. We’ve known each other a long time, and I needed her input on a big decision I was making. I knew she was busy, but I called her anyway, asking, “Can we do lunch?” Pamela lives quite a drive away, but she checked her calendar (another trait of safe people!), and we made an appointment. A few days later, we met, and I told her how much it meant to me for her to take the time out for me. She was genuinely surprised. “Well, I told you I’d be here, didn’t I?” Tears came to my eyes. For Pamela, a relationship means that you’re there for good. End of conversation. Look for people who are “anchored” over time. Don’t go for flashy, intense, addictive types. A Ford that will be there tomorrow is a lot better than a Maserati that might be gone. There are stable Maseratis. But it’s best to drive them awhile, that is, test out the relationship over time, to make sure.

If you feel hopeless, joyless, bewildered, if you second-guess yourself a lot and question whether you are too sensitive, you might be a victim of gaslighting. If you can’t figure out why you are so unhappy when you have so much good in your life, you might be experiencing this type of manipulation. Maybe you find yourself making excuses for your parent or partner’s behavior to friends and family. These are all signs you might be experiencing gaslighting.

Whoever is in charge of such things had been sparing with his blessings on the moment Benno was born. He had neither looks nor wit nor skill. He was not large or strong, he could not sing; in fact, he had a stammer, which on most occasions left him self-consciously mute. One gift only had been given, a gift as simple as it is rare: the gift of pure goodness. He knew, unerringly, what was right, what was kind, what would make people happy, and he did it without fail. His goodness took no effort; there was no internal scale to be balanced. He hoped for no reward and feared no hell. He was not clever- in his final year of school before the teachers despaired of him, he was asked how he would equitably divide a half-pound loaf of bread among himself and two friends. He said he would go without and his two friends would each have a quarter pound, and neither threats of failure nor the switch could persuade him to change his answer.

Whoever is in charge of such things had been sparing with his blessings on the moment Benno was born. He had neither looks nor wit nor skill. He was not large or strong, he could not sing; in fact, he had a stammer, which on most occasions left him self-consciously mute. One gift only had been given, a gift as simple as it is rare: the gift of pure goodness. He knew, unerringly, what was right, what was kind, what would make people happy, and he did it without fail. His goodness took no effort; there was no internal scale to be balanced. He hoped for no reward and feared no hell. He was not clever- in his final year of school before the teachers despaired of him, he was asked how he would equitably divide a half-pound loaf of bread among himself and two friends. He said he would go without and his two friends would each have a quarter pound, and neither threats of failure not the switch could persuade him to change his answer.

Scene I. A little dark Parlour in Boston: Guards standing at the door. Hazlerod, Crusty Crowbar, Simple Sapling, Hateall, and Hector Mushroom. Simple. I know not what to think of these sad times, The people arm'd,—and all resolv'd to die Ere they'll submit.—— Crusty Crowbar. I too am almost sick of the parade Of honours purchas'd at the price of peace. Simple. Fond as I am of greatness and her charms, Elate with prospects of my rising name, Push'd into place,—a place I ne'er expected, My bounding heart leapt in my feeble breast. And ecstasies entranc'd my slender brain.— But yet, ere this I hop'd more solid gains, As my low purse demands a quick supply.— Poor Sylvia weeps,—and urges my return To rural peace and humble happiness, As my ambition beggars all her babes. Crusty. When first I listed in the desp'rate cause, And blindly swore obedience to his will, So wise, so just, so good I thought Rapatio, That if salvation rested on his word I'd pin my faith, and risk my hopes thereon. Hazlerod. Any why not now?—What staggers thy belief? Crusty. Himself—his perfidy appears— It is too plain he has betray'd his country; And we're the wretched tools by him mark'd out To seal its ruins—tear up the ancient forms, And every vestige treacherously destroy, Nor leave a trait of freedom in the land. Nor did I think hard fate wou'd call me up From drudging o'er my acres, Treading the glade, and sweating at the plough, To dangle at the tables of the great; At bowls and cards to spend my frozen years; To sell my friends, my country, and my conscience; Profane the sacred sabbaths of my God; Scorn'd by the very men who want my aid To spread distress o'er this devoted people. Hazlerod. Pho—what misgivings—why these idle qualms, This shrinking backwards at the bugbear conscience; In early life I heard the phantom nam'd, And the grave sages prate of moral sense Presiding in the bosom of the just; Or planting thongs about the guilty heart. Bound by these shackles, long my lab'ring mind, Obscurely trod the lower walks of life, In hopes by honesty my bread to gain; But neither commerce, or my conjuring rods, Nor yet mechanics, or new fangled drills, Or all the iron-monger's curious arts, Gave me a competence of shining ore, Or gratify'd my itching palm for more; Till I dismiss'd the bold intruding guest, And banish'd conscience from my wounded breast. Crusty. Happy expedient!—Could I gain the art, Then balmy sleep might sooth my waking lids, And rest once more refresh my weary soul.

When grown children fall in love and choose someone to marry, we hope that person will be good to them. Sometimes we can see trouble ahead, but the more we find fault in whom they’ve picked, the more likely they are to cling to them. Our eyes are not blinded by infatuation or love, and we can see personality traits that give us cause to worry when we know in our bones that our beloved children may end up with broken hearts and broken marriages. But, again, we keep our mouths shut and hope for the best.

At the beginning of a relationship with a covert narcissist, you feel incredibly valued. Then you begin to experience little things, statements they make, looks they give that begin to demean and devalue you. It is all very subtle. Over a long period of time, you are given the message by someone you love and trust that you have no value, no matter what you do, no matter how kind you are, no matter how much you do for them, you will never ever be enough for them. The cold, hard truth is you do not matter to them, and unfortunately, the message you end up receiving is that you do not matter, period. The confusing thing is that while you are being devalued, you are also experiencing kindness. You receive beautiful love letters, affection, and loving gestures. You continue to believe this is a good relationship, and your partner loves you. You tell everyone around you how lucky you are to have the partner you do because you sincerely believe that. Your friends tell you they wish their husband/wife/partner was more like yours. However, though you are saying all of these things, you don’t notice your self-image and self-worth slowly declining over time. Through the years, you notice your health isn’t great, you feel depressed, you aren’t that happy, but you contribute these things to other things in life or blame yourself. The way your CN partner treats you goes unnoticed because it has become your normal. You don’t notice the consistent devaluing because it is so subtle. You don’t realize how you feel is a result of the trauma of living with an abuser.

Others may not notice it, because an angry Toraf is truly a rare thing to behold, but Galen can practically feel the animosity emanating from his friend. Which is why he casually bumps into him, taking care to be overly apologetic. “Oh, sorry about that, minnow. I didn’t even see you there.” Galen mimics Toraf’s demeanor, crossing his arms and staring ahead of them. What they’re supposed to be staring at, he’s not sure. His effort is rewarded with a slight upward curve of his friend’s mouth. “Oh, don’t think twice about it, tadpole. I know it must be difficult to swim straight with a whale’s tail.” Galen scowls, taking care not to glance down at his fin. Ever since they went to retrieve Grom, he’s been sore all below the waist, but he’d just attributed it to tension from finding Nalia, and then the whole tribunal mess-not to mention, hovering in place for hours at a time. Still, he did examine his fin the evening before, hoping to massage out any knots he found, but was a bit shocked to see that his fin span seemed to have widened. He decided that he was letting his imagination get the better of him. Now he’s not so sure. “What do you mean?” he says lightly. Toraf nods down toward the sand. “You know what I mean. Looks like you have the red fever.” “The red fever bloats you all over, idiot. Right before it kills you. It doesn’t make your fin grow wider. Besides, the red tide hasn’t been bad for years now.” But Toraf already knows what the red fever looks like. Not long after he first became a Tracker, Toraf was commissioned to find an older Syrena who had gone off on his own to die after he’d been caught in what the humans call the red tide. Toraf was forced to tie seaweed around the old one’s fin and pull his body to the Cave of Memories. No, he doesn’t think I have the red fever. Toraf allows himself a long look at Galen’s fin. If it were anyone else, Galen would consider it rude. “Does it hurt?” “It’s sore.” “Have you asked anyone about it?” “I’ve had other things on my mind.” Which is the truth. Galen really hadn’t given it much thought until right now. Now that it has been noticed by someone else. Toraf pulls his own fin around and after a few seconds of twisting and bending, he’s able to measure it against his torso. It spans from his neck to where his waist turns into velvety tail. He nods to Galen to do the same. Galen is horrified to find that his fin now spans from the top of his head to well below his waist. It really does look like a whale tail. “I don’t know how I feel about that,” Toraf says, thoughtful. “I’ve gotten used to having the most impressive fin out of the two of us.” Galen grins, letting his tail fall. “For a minute there I thought you really cared.” Toraf shrugs. “Being self-conscious doesn’t suit you.” Galen follows his gaze back out into the sea ahead of them. “So what do you think about yesterday’s tribunal?” “I think I know where Nalia and Emma get their temper.” Galen laughs. “I thought Jagen was going to pass out when Antonis grabbed him.” “He’s not very good at interacting with others anymore, is he?” “I wonder if he ever was. I told you how crazy Nalia always acted. Could be a family trait.” It looks like Toraf might actually smile but instead his gaze jerks back out to sea, a new scowl on his face. “Oh, no,” Galen groans. “What is it?” Please don’t say Emma. Please don’t say Emma. “Rayna,” Toraf says through clenched teeth. “She’s heading straight for us.” That’s almost as bad.

When I was seventeen I could still see well enough to read. My reading was a trait my parents admired without sharing it themselves. They described me to their friends as “bookish.” Really, I just appreciated how static and parsable words were on a page, how little they demanded of me visually. I liked books that took a long time to read, which meant that I read a lot of Russian novels, and The Brothers Karamazov was my favorite. I was reading it for the third time at Last Chance, imagining that I was Alyosha, a saint surrounded by sinners. I especially liked the part where the Elder Zosima described his childhood: I was the sickly elder brother who inspired him to become a man of the cloth, or maybe I was Zosima himself, who Alyosha prayed both for and with. The book had as many examples of how to be good as it had examples of how to be bad. It stretched for miles in my head.

Introversion—along with its cousins sensitivity, seriousness, and shyness—is now a second-class personality trait, somewhere between a disappointment and a pathology. Introverts living under the Extrovert Ideal are like women in a man’s world, discounted because of a trait that goes to the core of who they are. Extroversion is an enormously appealing personality style, but we’ve turned it into an oppressive standard to which most of us feel we must conform. The Extrovert Ideal has been documented in many studies, though this research has never been grouped under a single name. Talkative people, for example, are rated as smarter, better-looking, more interesting, and more desirable as friends. Velocity of speech counts as well as volume: we rank fast talkers as more competent and likable than slow ones. The same dynamics apply in groups, where research shows that the voluble are considered smarter than the reticent—even though there’s zero correlation between the gift of gab and good ideas.

Socrates: Would not he who is fitted to be a guardian, besides the spirited nature, need to have the qualities of a philosopher? Glaucon: I do not apprehend your meaning. S: The trait of which I am speaking, I replied, may be also seen in the dog, and is remarkable in the animal. G: What trait? S: Why, a dog, whenever he sees a stranger, is angry; when an acquaintance, he welcomes him, although the one has never done him any harm, nor the other any good. Did this never strike you as curious? G: The matter never struck me before; but I quite recognize the truth of your remark. S: And surely this instinct of the dog is very charming; —your dog is a true philosopher. G: Why? S: Why, because he distinguishes the face of a friend and of an enemy only by the criterion of knowing and not knowing. And must not an animal be a lover of learning who determines what he likes and dislikes by the test of knowledge and ignorance? G: Most assuredly. S: And is not the love of learning the love of wisdom, which is philosophy?

Did you ever consider how ridiculous it would be to try to cram on a farm—to forget to plant in the spring, play all summer and then cram in the fall to bring in the harvest? The farm is a natural system. The price must be paid and the process followed. You always reap what you sow; there is no shortcut. This principle is also true, ultimately, in human behavior, in human relationships. They, too, are natural systems based on the law of the harvest. In the short run, in an artificial social system such as school, you may be able to get by if you learn how to manipulate the man-made rules, to “play the game.” In most one-shot or short-lived human interactions, you can use the Personality Ethic to get by and to make favorable impressions through charm and skill and pretending to be interested in other people’s hobbies. You can pick up quick, easy techniques that may work in short-term situations. But secondary traits alone have no permanent worth in long-term relationships. Eventually, if there isn’t deep integrity and fundamental character strength, the challenges of life will cause true motives to surface and human relationship failure will replace short-term success. Many people with secondary greatness—that is, social recognition for their talents—lack primary greatness or goodness in their character. Sooner or later, you’ll see this in every long-term relationship they have, whether it is with a business associate, a spouse, a friend, or a teenage child going through an identity crisis. It is character that communicates most eloquently. As Emerson once put it, “What you are shouts so loudly in my ears I cannot hear what you say.” There are, of course, situations where people have character strength but they lack communication skills, and that undoubtedly affects the quality of relationships as well. But the effects are still secondary. In the last analysis, what we are communicates far more eloquently than anything we say or do. We all know it. There are people we trust absolutely because we know their character. Whether they’re eloquent or not, whether they have the human relations techniques or not, we trust them, and we work successfully with them. In the words of William George Jordan, “Into the hands of every individual is given a marvelous power for good or evil—the silent, unconscious, unseen influence of his life. This is simply the constant radiation of what man really is, not what he pretends to be.

Bernard is caring, helpful, and enjoyable to be with. Everybody loves him. And he really loves people. But Bernard is a relational sprinter, not a marathoner. He’s there for you if you’re there. But it’s hard for Bernard to keep you in mind when he’s off helping another person. This trait has caused Bernard to be unsafe with his friends and family. They have learned the hard way that you cannot depend on him. He commits and commits and commits—but he does not come through. If you ask him to return the lawnmower he borrowed last week, don’t block out your mowing hours on your schedule anytime soon. Bernard isn’t a bad person, nor is he insincere. But he loves the intense warmth of being close to a person in the here-and-now. It gets somewhat addictive to him, and he can’t delay gratification to help a person who isn’t around, when another, in-the-flesh person is available. And so he routinely disappoints himself and his friends. He flunks the time test. For example, when Bernard and I would plan dinners or nights out, he was often late, and sometimes he wouldn’t show up at all. Of course he’d always have a great excuse about some emergency or crisis. Finally, I realized I wasn’t a “crisis,” so I didn’t make the cut. I learned that, over time, I shouldn’t depend on Bernard.

Modeling Modeling is the process of watching how others act in certain situations, then copying their behavior. For example, if you are worried about the first impression you make, pay attention to how others present themselves. What traits give a good first impression? What do people say? How do confident people carry themselves? Also examine people who give a bad first impression and try to determine why. Imitate the actions that impressed you. With time, you will feel more comfortable with modeling and begin to own the traits you admire in others. Modeling works very well when you are in an unfamiliar situation. If you are not sure how to act, watching others will give you clues. Sam’s best friend’s father passed away and Sam attended the service. He had never been to a funeral before and felt very uncomfortable. As he stood in the receiving line, he felt anxious about what to say and how to act. He was terrified of saying the wrong thing and hurting his friend’s family. Sam stepped out of line and stood to the side for a moment. He observed what other people did as he breathed deeply and practiced relaxation techniques. After a few minutes, he figured out what to do and returned to the line. When he reached his friend’s mother, he gave her a hug and said, “I’m so sorry for your loss.” She hugged him back and thanked him for coming. Sam felt confident that he had acted appropriately.

Dear Mama: The reason I didn’t write last Sunday was because I was out of town. My friend Pound invited me to spend Saturday and Sunday with him … His parents are very nice people and have always been exceptionally kind to me. Mrs. Pound had prepared a fine meal … After supper Pound and I went to his room where we had a long talk on subjects that I love yet have not time to study and which he is making a life work of. That is literature, and the drama and the classics, also a little philosophy. He, Pound, is a fine fellow; he is the essence of optimism and has a cast-iron faith that is something to admire. If he ever does get blue nobody knows it, so he is just the man for me. But not one person in a thousand likes him, and a great many people detest him and why? Because he is so darned full of conceits and affectation. He is really a brilliant talker and thinker but delights in making himself just exactly what he is not: a laughing boor. His friends must be all patience in order to find him out and even then you must not let him know it, for he will immediately put on some artificial mood and be really unbearable. It is too bad, for he loves to be liked, yet there is some quality in him which makes him too proud to try to please people. I am sure his only fault is an exaggeration of a trait that in itself is good and in every way admirable. He is afraid of being taken in if he trusts his really tender heart to mercies of a cruel crowd and so keeps it hidden and trusts no one.

Since I did Selection all those years ago, not much has really changed. The MOD (Ministry of Defence) website still states that 21 SAS soldiers need the following character traits: “Physically and mentally robust. Self-confident. Self-disciplined. Able to work alone. Able to assimilate information and new skills.” It makes me smile now to read those words. As Selection had progressed, those traits had been stamped into my being, and then during the three years I served with my squadron they became molded into my psyche. They are the same qualities I still value today. The details of the jobs I did once I passed Selection aren’t for sharing publicly, but they included some of the most extraordinary training that any man can be lucky enough to receive. I went on to be trained in demolitions, air and maritime insertions, foreign weapons, jungle survival, trauma medicine, Arabic, signals, high-speed and evasive driving, winter warfare, as well as “escape and evasion” survival for behind enemy lines. I went through an even more in-depth capture initiation program as part of becoming a combat-survival instructor, which was much longer and more intense than the hell we endured on Selection. We became proficient in covert night parachuting and unarmed combat, among many other skills--and along the way we had a whole host of misadventures. But what do I remember and value most? For me, it is the camaraderie, and the friendships--and of course Trucker, who is still one of my best friends on the planet. Some bonds are unbreakable. I will never forget the long yomps, the specialist training, and of course a particular mountain in the Brecon Beacons. But above all, I feel a quiet pride that for the rest of my days I can look myself in the mirror and know that once upon a time I was good enough. Good enough to call myself a member of the SAS. Some things don’t have a price tag.

He and Powell would be celebrating their twentieth wedding anniversary a few days later, and he admitted that at times he had not been as appreciative of her as she deserved. “I’m very lucky, because you just don’t know what you’re getting into when you get married,” he said. “You have an intuitive feeling about things. I couldn’t have done better, because not only is Laurene smart and beautiful, she’s turned out to be a really good person.” For a moment he teared up. He talked about his other girlfriends, particularly Tina Redse, but said he ended up in the right place. He also reflected on how selfish and demanding he could be. “Laurene had to deal with that, and also with me being sick,” he said. “I know that living with me is not a bowl of cherries.” Among his selfish traits was that he tended not to remember anniversaries or birthdays. But in this case, he decided to plan a surprise. They had gotten married at the Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite, and he decided to take Powell back there on their anniversary. But when Jobs called, the place was fully booked. So he had the hotel approach the people who had reserved the suite where he and Powell had stayed and ask if they would relinquish it. “I offered to pay for another weekend,” Jobs recalled, “and the man was very nice and said, ‘Twenty years, please take it, it’s yours.’” He found the photographs of the wedding, taken by a friend, and had large prints made on thick paper boards and placed in an elegant box. Scrolling through his iPhone, he found the note that he had composed to be included in the box and read it aloud: "We didn’t know much about each other twenty years ago. We were guided by our intuition; you swept me off my feet. It was snowing when we got married at the Ahwahnee. Years passed, kids came, good times, hard times, but never bad times. Our love and respect has endured and grown. We’ve been through so much together and here we are right back where we started 20 years ago—older, wiser—with wrinkles on our faces and hearts. We now know many of life’s joys, sufferings, secrets and wonders and we’re still here together. My feet have never returned to the ground."  By the end of the recitation he was crying uncontrollably. When he composed himself, he noted that he had also made a set of the pictures for each of his kids. “I thought they might like to see that I was young once.

If you’re still not sure where you fall on the introvert-extrovert spectrum, you can assess yourself here. Answer each question “true” or “false,” choosing the answer that applies to you more often than not.* ______ I prefer one-on-one conversations to group activities. ______ I often prefer to express myself in writing. ______ I enjoy solitude. ______ I seem to care less than my peers about wealth, fame, and status. ______ I dislike small talk, but I enjoy talking in depth about topics that matter to me. ______ People tell me that I’m a good listener. ______ I’m not a big risk-taker. ______ I enjoy work that allows me to “dive in” with few interruptions. ______ I like to celebrate birthdays on a small scale, with only one or two close friends or family members. ______ People describe me as “soft-spoken” or “mellow.” ______ I prefer not to show or discuss my work with others until it’s finished. ______ I dislike conflict. ______ I do my best work on my own. ______ I tend to think before I speak. ______ I feel drained after being out and about, even if I’ve enjoyed myself. ______ I often let calls go through to voice mail. ______ If I had to choose, I’d prefer a weekend with absolutely nothing to do to one with too many things scheduled. ______ I don’t enjoy multitasking. ______ I can concentrate easily. ______ In classroom situations, I prefer lectures to seminars. The more often you answered “true,” the more introverted you probably are. If you found yourself with a roughly equal number of “true” and “false” answers, then you may be an ambivert—yes, there really is such a word. But even if you answered every single question as an introvert or extrovert, that doesn’t mean that your behavior is predictable across all circumstances. We can’t say that every introvert is a bookworm or every extrovert wears lampshades at parties any more than we can say that every woman is a natural consensus-builder and every man loves contact sports. As Jung felicitously put it, “There is no such thing as a pure extrovert or a pure introvert. Such a man would be in the lunatic asylum.” This is partly because we are all gloriously complex individuals, but also because there are so many different kinds of introverts and extroverts. Introversion and extroversion interact with our other personality traits and personal histories, producing wildly different kinds of people. So

[Scarlett] knew how to smile so that her dimples leaped, how to walk pigeon-toed so that her wide hoop skirts swayed entrancingly, how to look up into a man's face and then drop her eyes and bat the lids rapidly so that she seemed a-tremble with gentle emotion. Most of all she learned how to conceal from men a sharp intelligence beneath a face as sweet and bland as a baby's. Ellen, by soft admonition, . . . labored to inculcate in her the qualities that would make her truly desirable as a wife. "You must be more gentle, dear, more sedate," Ellen told her daughter. "You must not interrupt gentlemen when they are speaking, even if you do think you know more about matters than they do. Gentlemen do not like forward girls." [Ellen] taught her all that a gentlewoman should know, but she learned only the outward signs of gentility. The inner grace from which these signs should spring, she never learned nor did she see any reason for learning it. Appearances were enough, for the appearances of ladyhood won her popularity and that was all she wanted. . . . At sixteen, thanks to Mammy and Ellen, she looked sweet, charming and giddy, but she was, in reality, self-silled, vain and obstinate. She had the easily stirred passions of her Irish father and nothing except the thinnest veneer of her mother's unselfish and forbearing nature. . . It was not that these two loving mentors deplored Scarlett's high spirits, vivacity and charm. These were traits of which Southern women were proud. It was Gerald's headstrong and impetuous nature in her that gave them concern, and they sometimes feared they would not be able to conceal her damaging qualities until she had made a good match. But Scarlett intended to marry-and marry Ashley-and she was willing to appear demure, pliable and scatterbrained, if those were the qualities that attracted men. Just why men should be this way, she did not know. She only knew that such methods worked. It never interested her enough to try to think out the reason for it, for she knew nothing of the inner workings of any human being's mind, not even her own. She knew only that if she did or said thus-and-so, men would unerringly respond with the complementary thus-and-so. It was like a mathematical formula and no more difficult . . . If she knew little about men's minds, she knew even less about the minds of women, for they interested her less. She had never had a girl friend, and she never felt any lack on that account. To her, all women, including her two sisters, were natural enemies in pursuit of the same prey-man.

Three-and-a-half-month-old infants already seem to exhibit the other-race effect. In a study at the University of Kentucky, white babies were very good at distinguishing faces with 100 percent Caucasian features from faces that had been graphically morphed to include features that were 70 percent white and 30 percent Asian. They couldn’t do the reverse: They could not tell 100 percent Asian faces from those that were morphed to include 30 percent white features. In other words, they could detect small differences between white and not-quite-white faces, but not the same kinds of differences between Asian and not-quite-Asian faces. Lawrence A. Hirschfeld of the University of Michigan did some of the pioneering work on how early in life children begin to understand race. He showed children of ages three, four, and seven, a picture of “Johnny:” a chubby black boy in a police uniform, complete with whistle and toy gun. He then showed them pictures of adults who shared two of Johnny’s three main traits of race, body build, and uniform. Prof. Hirschfeld prepared all combinations—policemen who were fat but were white, thin black policemen, etc.—and asked the children which was Johnny’s daddy or which was Johnny all grown up. Even the three-year-olds were significantly more likely to choose the black man rather than the fat man or the policeman. They knew that weight and occupation can change but race is permanent. In 1996, after 15 years of studying children and race, Prof. Hirschfeld concluded: “Our minds seem to be organized in a way that makes thinking racially—thinking that the human world can be segmented into discrete racial populations—an almost automatic part of our mental repertoire.” When white preschoolers are shown racially ambiguous faces that look angry, they tend to say they are faces of blacks, but categorize happy faces as white. “These filters through which people see the world are present very early,” explained Andrew Baron of Harvard. Phyllis Katz, then a professor at the University of Colorado, studied young children for their first six years. At age three, she showed them photographs of other children and asked them whom they would like to have as friends. Eighty-six percent of white children chose photographs of white children. At age five and six, she gave children pictures of people and told them to sort them into two piles by any criteria they liked. Sixty-eight percent sorted by race and only 16 by sex. Of her entire six-year study Prof. Katz said, “I think it is fair to say that at no point in the study did the children exhibit the Rousseau type of color-blindness that many adults expect.

That’s one of the problems with the way I’m wired. I don’t trust people to accept who I am in process. I’m the kind of person who wants to present my most honest, authentic self to the world—so I hide backstage and rehearse honest and authentic lines until the curtain opens. I only say this because the same personality trait that made me a good writer also made me terrible at relationships. You can only hide backstage for so long. To have an intimate relationship, you have to show people who you really are. I’d gotten good at reeling in a woman and then bowing to say, “Thanks, you’ve been a great audience,” right about the time I had to let her know who I really was. I hardly knew who I really was myself, much less how to be fully known. WHEN BETSY ARRIVED IN ASHEVILLE, I’D HARDLY talked to another human being in weeks. I felt like a scuba diver having to come to the surface when she asked a question. We were sitting by the pond in front of the cabin when she asked how I could spend so much time alone. She said her friends admired my ability to isolate for a book’s sake but wondered whether it was healthy. I don’t think she was worried. She just found the ability foreign. I thought about it and told her something I’d learned about myself in the year I spent pursuing her. I’d learned my default mode was to perform. Even in small groups I feel like I have to be “on.” But when I’m alone my energy comes back. When I’m alone I don’t have to perform for anybody. She said I didn’t have to perform for her. She didn’t have to say that. I knew it was true. Who else do you marry but the person who pulls you off the stage?

Daniel’s early life demonstrates that there is more to being young than making mistakes. No characteristic wins the hearts of adults more quickly than wisdom in the words and actions of a young person. Daniel and his friends had been taken from their homes in Judah and exiled. Their futures were in doubt, but they all had personal traits that qualified them for jobs as servants in the king’s palace. They took advantage of the opportunity without letting the opportunity take advantage of them. • Our first hint of Daniel’s greatness comes in his quiet refusal to give up his convictions. He had applied God’s will to his own life, and he resisted changing the good habits he had formed. Both his physical and spiritual diets were an important part of his relationship with God. He ate carefully and lived prayerfully. One of the benefits of being in training for royal service was eating food from the king’s table. Daniel tactfully chose a simpler menu that wouldn’t compromise his observance of God’s law. • While Daniel carefully limited his food options, he generously indulged in prayer. He was able to communicate with God because he made it a habit. He put into practice his convictions, even when that meant being thrown into a den of hungry lions. His life proved he made the right choice. • Do you hold so strongly to your faith in God that no matter what happens you will do what God says? Such conviction keeps you a step ahead of temptation; such conviction gives you wisdom and stability in changing circumstances. Prayerfully live out your convictions in everyday life and trust God for the results.

The ramifications of this experiment are deeply troubling. It is terribly disturbing to realize that we humans harbor a dual nature. Capable of extraordinary kindness and good, we also, unfortunately, are capable of extraordinary sadism and evil when we find ourselves in an environment that supports those traits. And it does not take long for us to adapt to considering another group of people, who days earlier had been our friends and peers, to be inferior and deserving of derision and abuse.

A good friend was always going on about the merits of practical love. For her it was quite simple—make a list of values and personality traits and marry the first person that checks off. Assembly-line love. But the pragmatists don’t realize what fifty years in the same room can feel like, particularly if there is no soul bridge between the two people. What happens if one partner begins to grumble for a more spiritual life? Will they be held back by the practical partnership they committed to seven years earlier? Do they adapt to the lowest common denominator and vibrate at the level of the least growth-full partner? Do they feign commonality at the expense of their clarity? Or do they walk away with three screaming children?

You Belong in Ravenclaw The house of the wise and the curious. Ravenclaws value wisdom, intellect, learning and creativity. They are always eager to acquire new knowledge and skills and to explore new ideas and possibilities. They are also original, eccentric and witty, but sometimes aloof and detached. Some famous Ravenclaws are Luna Lovegood, Cho Chang, Gilderoy Lockhart and Filius Flitwick. You are a total brainiac, and you feel like there is always more to learn. You are very curious about the world. To say you are a big reader is putting things mildly; you are addicted to books. You read everything you can get your hands on. You enjoy being around good friends, but you can spend tons of time alone too. Your ideas, thoughts, and theories occupy you. You are quite independent and open to new ways of thinking. You get frustrated with people who are closed-minded. The water signs of Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces are most suited for Ravenclaw, as they share the traits of wisdom, creativity, learning and curiosity. They are also intuitive, imaginative and sometimes aloof. Luna Lovegood is a Cancer, which explains her wisdom and eccentricity.

Where does this show up in my life? How does this affect the choices I make every day? Can I see this playing out at work, or in my family, or in my relationships? Which of my friends come to mind when I’m reading this? Which people in my life are good examples here, who I can try to learn from, and who do I know who embodies the very worst of these traits?

scientific analysis of personality traits is known as the “Big Five,” which breaks them down into five spectrums of behavior. Openness to experience: from curious and inventive on one end to cautious and consistent on the other. Conscientiousness: organized and efficient to easygoing and spontaneous. Extroversion: outgoing and energetic to solitary and reserved (you likely know them as extroverts vs. introverts). Agreeableness: friendly and compassionate to challenging and detached. Neuroticism: anxious and sensitive to confident, calm, and stable.

We trust people to be good and decent. We trust our food, our drinks, to be safe. We trust our friends, our family, our partners, to have our backs and do the right thing. Honor their word. And we should not. People are selfish. They will lie and cheat if they think they can get away with it, if they think it will gain them fortune and fame. These traits are inherited and taught, passed down from generation to generation, a family tree of deceit and lies.

If you remember only one thing from this book, it should be the following research study. Xinyin Chen and Kenneth Rubin of the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, and Yuerong Sun of Shanghai Teachers University compared 480 schoolchildren in Shanghai to 296 in Canada to see what traits made children most popular. In China “shy” and “sensitive” children were among those most chosen by others to be friends or playmates. (In Mandarin, the word for shy or quiet means good or well-behaved; sensitive can be translated as “having understanding,” a term of praise.) In Canada, shy and sensitive children were among the least chosen. Chances are, this is the kind of attitude you faced growing up. Think about the impact on you of not being the ideal for your culture. It has to affect you—not only how others have treated you but how you have come to treat yourself.

O pious of the heart, I am lost in a love, so great O pain the hidden secrets will become open debate. Shipwrecked we just float, O favorable wind arise, May we one more time gaze upon that familiar trait. Passage of time and the stars, are but what we fantasize For compassion and kindness, it is never too late. In the circle of wine and roses, nightingale’s song is prize With the aroma and the wine your senses satiate. O Thou compassionate one, life giver and the wise One day bestow thy grace upon this mendicant’s state. For peace of this world and the next, understand what I advise Magnanimity the lot of friends, and with foes try to relate. In the land of repute, our passage they will dispute If this will not suit, don’t stay mute, and transmute dictates of fate. When destitute and in need, let your love and passion breed Life’s alchemy, essence and seed, unimagined wealth shall create. If unruly with pride, with a candle’s zeal your flame will rise Beloved turns stone to lava, and molten wax manipulate. The Grail contains but wine, if only you realize Then the Kingdom of the world, at your feet prostrate. The good and wise Magi, forgivers of lives and lies Bearer bring good news, drunkards’ wine consecrate. With this wine stained robe, Hafiz would never disguise O untainted pure Master, exempt us from this fate

Early May 2012 In response to Andy’s Email, I wrote: Hi Andy, I’m glad to know you are doing well, and I trust that you are coping with the loss of Albert. Without doubt, your daily meditations and rowing exercises will do wonders for your healing process. We have both been through rough periods after our separation. We grew stronger in body and spirit through these experiences. Although we have matured, you are still the person I’ll always love and cherish. I’m sure there are many men who would be thrilled to have the opportunity to be in a relationship with you. Your charismatic personality traits and stunning good looks ensure that you will come out on top, every time! If I were single, I’d be the first in line to solicit a relationship with you, you handsome man! Are you currently dating anyone? My life partner Walter, is the person who spearheaded my search for you. He’s enamored with the way I describe you as God in human form. The two of you have very similar personalities; that’s the reason I love you both very, very much. This, my friend, is the undeniable truth. I am extremely grateful for the years we shared and I look forward to meeting again. For now I am grateful for our long distance friendship…

Randolph, having provoked the challenge, could not decline it. As much as he hated Clay’s politics he had a sneaking admiration for him personally—Black George, after all, was a good-natured knave—and had been heard to say, “I prefer to be killed by Clay to any other death.”33 The two men met, with their seconds, on the Virginia side of the Potomac on April 8. Neither was experienced with dueling pistols. Both missed on the first exchange of shots at ten paces. This was enough to satisfy the code duello, but it did not satisfy Clay. He insisted on another round, and Randolph consented. Clay then put his bullet through the long, voluminous white coat Randolph wore for the occasion. Uninjured, and drained of any desire to injure Clay, he fired into the air, dropped his pistol, came forward, extended his hand and said, “You owe me a coat, Mr. Clay.” Taking his hand, Clay replied, “I am glad the debt is no greater.” (Rebecca Gratz, one of Clay’s friends, remarked, “It would be well if he gave him [Randolph] a strait jacket. “)34 In the sensation produced by the duel no one blamed Clay but many, including some of his best friends, felt he should have consulted his discretion rather than his courage and found some other way of dealing with Randolph. Clay’s sense of honor was never in question; the duel, while unnecessary to prove that, dramatized the very traits of anger and unruliness that he most needed to erase from the public image. It did not quiet Randolph. He liked Clay too much to kill him, yet continued his shrill attack; and when he died seven years later left instructions that he be buried facing west—not east as customary—so as to keep an eye on Henry Clay.35

In such prototribal societies, individuals who found it harder to play along, to restrain their antisocial impulses, and to conform to the most important collective norms would not have been anyone’s top choice when it came time to choose partners for hunting, foraging, or mating. In particular, people who were violent would have been shunned, punished, or in extreme cases killed. This process has been described as “self-domestication.”71 The ancestors of dogs, cats, and pigs got less aggressive as they were domesticated and shaped for partnership with human beings. Only the friendliest ones approached human settlements in the first place; they volunteered to become the ancestors of today’s pets and farm animals. In a similar way, early humans domesticated themselves when they began to select friends and partners based on their ability to live within the tribe’s moral matrix. In fact, our brains, bodies, and behavior show many of the same signs of domestication that are found in our domestic animals: smaller teeth, smaller body, reduced aggression, and greater playfulness, carried on even into adulthood.72 The reason is that domestication generally takes traits that disappear at the end of childhood and keeps them turned on for life. Domesticated animals (including humans) are more childlike, sociable, and gentle than their wild ancestors. These

Mark is a walking dilemma, one of those people who’s hard to figure out. He is an unmarried Christian professional man with no “horrible” problems like drugs, sex, or compulsive addictions. He’s intelligent, athletic, and good-looking. He’s responsible and loves God. Mark is forty-five years old. And he has no friends, safe or otherwise. He is very, very alone. How does that picture come together? On the outside, it doesn’t make sense. A guy with Mark’s qualities should have a rich, active relational life. But when you understand the power of perfectionism, it makes “perfect” sense. For Mark is a perfectionist and has only recently seen the devastating consequences of this trait. Sometimes we make jokes about our perfectionism: “I looked in the mirror and got depressed about being three pounds overweight.” The genuine article, however, can be much more serious. Perfectionism can be a major cause of depression, destructive behaviors, and divorce. What is perfectionism? Simply put, it’s an inability to tolerate faults. Perfectionists have a phobia about imperfections and blemishes in themselves, in other people, and in the world. They spend enormous amounts of time trying to create a perfect world, running in futility from the realities of sin, age, loss, and cellulite. The perfectionist tries to live in the land of ideals. He sees life the way “it should be.” People should treat each other right. I should be a productive, successful person. Fairness and equality should rule. Then he sees the huge chasm between the land of ideals and the land of the real. For example, he cannot live up to his expectations of himself. Or he is let down by someone important to him. And he has great difficulty accepting where he lives—the land of the real. So he tries to change his permanent address to ideal-land again.

From Files: (Desirable Sled Dog Traits, 1965) I. Above all others, must be genetically forward-oriented. Self-driven, trail aggressive. 2. Medium size, males 50 -75 Ibs; females 50-60 lbs. Good body conformation. Well furred. 3. Good feet. 4, Siberian husky appearance. 5. People-oriented (friendly). 6. Trail endurance, capable of a long day’s work.

You should look for opportunities to turn your child into a social leader. Brownies, Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, Indian Guides, National Outdoor Leadership Schools, church and synagogue youth groups, and almost any type of community service opportunities are extraordinarily helpful to popular children. These opportunities allow them to turn their attractive traits into concrete acts of generosity toward others. Good leaders show respect toward other people; good leaders use win-win strategies. It is not enough for children to be smart or to be able to reflect on moral problems. Children need to be put into situations where they can practice moral acts - and that is true of the socially gifted as it is of kids who veer toward the antisocial. We have to give our naturally popular children the moral guidance to make them into true leaders.

#11forJacob Movement Jacob Wetterling loved sports. His dad coached his soccer team. He wanted to be a football player. He was a skilled hockey goalie. Jacob also believed in a fair and just world, a world where all children know they are special and deserve to be safe. We ask you to be part of #11forJacob. This movement centers around 11 simple traits that Jacob valued: Be fair Be kind Be understanding Be honest Be thankful Be a good sport Be a good friend Be joyful Be generous Be gentle with others Be positive

The most proven scientific analysis of personality traits is known as the "Big Five", which breaks them down into five spectrums of behavior. 1. Openness to experience: From curious and inventive on one end to cautious and consistent on the other. 2. Conscientiousness: organized and efficient to easygoing and spontaneous. 3. Extroversion: outgoing and energetic to solitary and reserved (you likely know them as extroverts vs. introverts). 4. Agreeableness: friendly and compassionate to challenging and detached. 5. Neuroticism: anxious and sensitive to confident, calm and stable. p220

How do I know I have lived? How can I be certain my days were not squandered? What criteria, which principles qualify life as lived? Certainly, I have endured trials and troubles, and I learned from life’s lessons. I grew wise as well as empathetic. But is edification and its accompanying traits the ultimate aim for living? I have traveled. Oh, I have seen marvelous wonders in this world. Skies that were artic blue, emerald green, soft lilac, and rosy red. Mountains fixed like monuments to the gods. Waters as clear as crystal, as blue as larimar, deeper than a leviathan’s lair, and as vast as the night’s sky. I have witnessed pyramids and castles, colosseums, great walls, and temples. Is this living? To travel, to see, to awe at the world’s aesthetic wonders? I have experienced great joys in my days: laughter, kindness, fun, love, thrills, successes. I have suffered a great many sorrows: sickness, loss, pain, cruelty, vengeance, disparagement. I have valued the good and abhorred the bad. Is this the ultimate feat of living? I have been actively doing: from sailing to flying, acting to singing, hiking to biking. I have dived, danced, drummed, battled, built, raced, and used my incredible body to perform every activity I desired. I gained strength and endurance in the process. Is this a sure sign of living? I have been part of a family and raised my own. I have formed lasting, loyal friendships that have passed the test of time. I have felt what it means to sacrifice for loved ones, shared in their joys and sorrows, prayed for tender mercies and miracles in their lives. I have loved and been loved in return. Is it connection to family and friends, the relationships developed between kindred, is this what it means to truly live? How do I know I have lived? As my days near an end, how can I be certain my life was worthwhile and not wasted? Did I accomplish what life mandates of those who truly live? What qualifies life as lived?

I also want to point out—and this is much more distressing—that the only people I saw complaining were White. I posted the Smithsonian’s image on my Facebook page, where I expected many of my 250 Black friends would express their outrage. Only one commented. I called Ibou in Senegal. I told him the source of the poster and explained why it was a big deal. I said, “I’m just going to read it to you, from top to bottom. Without comment. Just listen.” So I read it to him: “To be White is to be logical. To be White is to believe in hard work. To be White is to be rational.” When I was done, he just said, “Then I guess I’m White.” He went on to say the people who wrote it are inhuman because these are the things that it takes to be a well-rounded human being. These are the character traits that everyone needs to succeed in life and to lead a good, honorable life.

Daniel brought Billy, much to my and Fern’s delight—we’d forever longed for a brother, and all those wonderful traits a brother brought with him: roughhousing, logical arguments, and good-looking friends.

The Phlegmatic-Melancholic Person (PHLEG-MEL) The Phlegmatic-Melancholy persons are seen as extreme introverts. They are the quietest persons who rarely voice out their views. The phleg-mel types are the quietest persons among all the groups. Hardly will they offer threats to people or flatter them with words. Often, they are seen walking alone without friends. Strengths of the PHLEG-MEL person They are people who scarcely exchange words with others. They even live at peace with their enemies. Hardly will they be ruthlessly, even in situations that demand severe action, they are gentle. They may only flare up occasionally when they have been criticized and stirred up beyond their limits. At meetings where people argue and insult one another, they will act gently, as if they were not present. They have the natural ability of showing mercy and being helpful to others. They forgive freely and are not often offended by others. They do not verbalize their criticisms nor create hatred for themselves like the San-Mels. They do not criticize their superior officers in their absence to destroy unity, as do the Mel-Chol types. They do not spend precious time to socialize and also, they scarcely come out of themselves to do things. This behavior traits in them make them good in job fields or occupations that demand patience and detail, such as radio mechanics, computer engineering, watch repairing, taking of inventory and costing. When books are misplaced in a library, they are the persons to search for them; they have the patience for it. Weaknesses of the PHLEG-MEL person They are too shy and slothful. They allow the brightest opportunities in their lives to slip by. With the combination of the phlegmatic and the melancholic traits, both of whom refuse leadership, if they are not careful, they will miss all the golden opportunities in their lives

Name … Cookie Haque – well, kind of.1 Parents … Abed and Rozie. Sisters … Nahid and Roubi. Age … Nine, although I feel I am more mature than this. Pets … Really want one. Star Sign … Don’t believe in all that. I mean, how could somebody’s whole personality be determined by random stars or what month they’re born in? Makes no sense. E.g. I’m supposed to be a Scorpio but their traits include being jealous, negative, secretive and resentful. I am NONE of those! Best friend … Keziah, Keziah, always and forever Keziah. BFF. Hobbies … I love drawing and doodling. My current favourite doodle is a hedgehog. I like drawing it with different hairstyles. I love long words and chatting too, if you count that as a hobby! I used to collect sachets of stuff, anything really … salt, pepper, shampoo, all sorts – but I’ve given up on that now. I’ve collected so many different types of things: coins, stamps, acorns. No idea why I collected acorns. Random! Favourite Teacher … Ms Krantz Favourite Subject … Science. How can anybody not love science? I like it because it explains EVERYTHING. It’s thanks to science that human beings can build buildings that don’t fall down, design cars and planes that don’t crash and make medicines to help us get better. Without progress in science we’d all still be cavemen running around in rabbit skins with sticks! No houses, no TVs, no iPads! We owe science A LOT. Favourite Food … I love all food except for pork. We don’t eat pork in my family cos we’re Muslim. My favourite sandwich is coronation chicken and my favourite food at the moment is a roast dinner but it changes all the time. I just love food! Favourite Colour … Favourite colour for what? Just because I like wearing green clothes doesn’t mean I want to paint my house green! What a dumb question! More Stuff About Me … I do a good Bart Simpson impression. CHAPTER 1 Animal Lover

It’s clear: culture’s distorted definition of success will leave you vacant, broken, and washing up against the rocks of an empty glass. However, let this book be a sword. A piece of truth warring against an enemy disguised as a friend. Let it be the eyes you need to find yourself. The ears required to hear the code. Oblivion is the way of the wide. Its burden is a feather of iron. But truth always comes at the cost of change, growth, and resistance. I’d like to close this book by exploring the concept of maturity. I’ve defined maturity as “choosing to walk in godly character traits that are not natural to your personality.” In other words, conforming our flesh, our mind, our emotions, and our hearts to the Word of God.

YEAR 2020 THE WORST WORLD’S STINGER You have challenged us to the core and you have stripped us naked in every aspects of our lives and you are still in the business of robbing us more than ever. You have snatched our social freedom out of our lives. You have destroyed our health You have stolen our peace and joy You have have taken away our loved ones You have have taken away our dear friends You have ambushed our jobs You have swallowed our finances You have instilled so much hatred in the entire world You have created division among humankind like never before You have shaken the foundations of our faith in God You have deceived so many people You have exposed the uncertainty of the church You have diminished our good character traits You have buried so many dreams and visions in the darkest cave of fear MY TAKE AWAY FROM YOUR NASTY DEEDS I have learned to listen and think before I say or do anything I have learned to stand firm for the truth of Jesus Christ I have learned to promote love and peace I have learned to promote respect and kindness I have learned to promote integrity and loyalty I have learned to listen more from my helper the Holy Spirit I have seen the power of God paralysed your devilish tactics God is in control and He has the final say He is Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last The Beginning and the End and nothing is impossible with Him. Good bye year 2020, we thank God that we will never see you again and we will never forget your barbaric deeds of terror. I will surely enter the year 2021 with my head held high because I know my redeemer lives. Thank you Lord Jesus for your unconditional love and for your divine protection!!!!

Every character I create begins with a personality trait or eccentricity and, like each of us, I add layers to the character – some good; some bad – until I have a multi-dimensional person who is real enough for the reader to believe they have met them or known someone just like them in real life. Some of these layers may be based on a trait I have recognised in someone I have known, whether it is a mum in the playground or a man I have sat next to on the train, but none of them are real people.

JULY 13 God said to Jonah, “Do you have a right to be angry?” Jonah 4:9 From the pen of Charles Spurgeon: Anger is not necessarily sinful in all cases, but it has such a tendency to get out of control that whenever it shows itself we should be quick to question its nature. We should ask ourselves, “Do you have a right to be angry?” Perhaps we can answer, “Yes,” for sometimes it is Elijah’s “fire from heaven” (2 Kings 1:10 KJV), yet often it is simply the sign of an out-of-control madman. To have anger over sin is a good thing because of the wrong sin commits against our good and gracious God. It is good to be angry with ourselves for remaining foolish after so much godly instruction or to be angry with others when the sole cause of our anger is the evil they are doing. Someone who is not angry over sinfulness is someone who is partaking in the sin, for sin is a loathsome, hateful thing and no renewed heart can patiently endure it. God Himself is angry with the wicked every day and His Word says, “Let those who love the LORD hate evil” (Ps. 97:10). Far more frequently, however, our anger is not commendable or justifiable, so our answer must be, “No, I don’t have a right to be angry.” Why do we get so enraged with our children, exasperated with our employees, and irritated with our friends? Is this type of anger honorable to our Christian testimony or glorifying to God? Isn’t this kind of anger evidence of our old evil heart seeking to regain control, and shouldn’t we resist it with all the power of our newborn nature? Many professing Christians allow their tempers free rein, as though it were useless to resist. Yet believers should remember that we must “in all these things [be] more than conquerors” (Rom. 8:37) or else we cannot be crowned. If we cannot control our temper, what has grace done for us? Someone once said that grace is often grafted into the most bitter crabapple tree stump. That may be true, but then its fruit will no longer be bitter. We must never use our natural weaknesses as an excuse for sin. Instead we must run to the cross and pray for the Lord to crucify our temper and renew in us the traits of gentleness and meekness that reflect His image.

Career: What kind of work do you find valuable? What kind of person do you want to be in your work? Leisure activity: What activities do you find relaxing or rejuvenating? What hobbies bring you joy? Caregiving: How important is it for you to care for and inspire others? Family: What type of sister, mother, daughter do you want to be? What sorts of relationships do you want to build with your immediate family? Your extended family? Your in-laws? Intimate relationships: What kind of partner do you want to be? What kind of relationship would you like to build? Who is the ideal you in your relationship? Community involvement: Would you like to contribute to political, social, environmental, or other community causes? What kind of position do you wish to occupy within your community? Religion and spirituality: What form of spirituality, if any, matters to you? What role do you want religion or spirituality to play in your life? How would you describe your ideal self in regard to your spirituality? Education and personal development: What education or skills do you most value? How important is ongoing education, and what role do you want it to play in your life? Health: How do you approach mental and physical fitness? What kind of relationship do you wish to have with food, exercise, sleep, substances, and intellectual pursuits? Friends: What qualities do you want to bring to your friendships? What kinds of friendships do you want to build? Other: What is missing from this list that is vital to a meaningful life? How do you want to enact this value in your life?

resilience emerges from a combination of social support (good friends and family), hardship (bad luck), and certain personality traits (especially hyperthymia). Let’s consider each of these factors. Social

identify your employee adjectives, (2) recruit through proper advertising, (3) identify winning personalities, and (4) select your winners. Step One: Identify Your Employee Adjectives When you think of your favorite employees in the past, what comes to mind? A procedural element such as an organized workstation, neat paperwork, or promptness? No. What makes an employee memorable is her attitude and smile, the way she takes the time to make sure a customer is happy, the extra mile she goes to ensure orders are fulfilled and problems are solved. Her intrinsic qualities—her energy, sense of humor, eagerness, and contributions to the team—are the qualities you remember. Rather than relying on job descriptions that simply quantify various positions’ duties and correlating them with matching experience as a tool for identifying and hiring great employees, I use a more holistic approach. The first step in the process is selecting eight adjectives that best define the personality ideal for each job or role in your business. This is a critical step: it gives you new visions and goals for your own management objectives, new ways to measure employee success, and new ways to assess the performance of your own business. Create a “Job Candidate Profile” for every job position in your business. Each Job Candidate Profile should contain eight single- and multiple-word phrases of defining adjectives that clearly describe the perfect employee for each job position. Consider employee-to-customer personality traits, colleague-to-colleague traits, and employee-to-manager traits when making up the list. For example, an accounting manager might be described with adjectives such as “accurate,” “patient,” “detailed,” and “consistent.” A cocktail server for a nightclub or casual restaurant would likely be described with adjectives like “energetic,” “fun,” “music-loving,” “sports-loving,” “good-humored,” “sociable conversationalist,” “adventurous,” and so on. Obviously, the adjectives for front-of-house staff and back-of-house staff (normally unseen by guests) will be quite different. Below is one generic example of a Job Candidate Profile. Your lists should be tailored for your particular bar concept, audience, location, and style of business (high-end, casual, neighborhood, tourist, and so on). BARTENDER Energetic Extroverted/Conversational Very Likable (first impression) Hospitable, demonstrates a Great Service Attitude Sports Loving Cooperative, Team Player Quality Orientated Attentive, Good Listening Skills SAMPLE ADJECTIVES Amazing Ambitious Appealing Ardent Astounding Avid Awesome Buoyant Committed Courageous Creative Dazzling Dedicated Delightful Distinctive Diverse Dynamic Eager Energetic Engaging Entertaining Enthusiastic Entrepreneurial Exceptional Exciting Fervent Flexible Friendly Genuine High-Energy Imaginative Impressive Independent Ingenious Keen Lively Magnificent Motivating Outstanding Passionate Positive Proactive Remarkable Resourceful Responsive Spirited Supportive Upbeat Vibrant Warm Zealous Step Two: Recruit through Proper Advertising The next step is to develop print or online advertising copy that will attract the personalities you’ve just defined.

It is also built sweetly through love and pleasure. When you have deep friendships with good people, you copy and then absorb some of their best traits. When you love a person deeply, you want to serve them and earn their regard. When you experience great art, you widen your repertoire of emotions. Through devotion to some cause, you elevate your desires and organize your energies. Moreover, the struggle against the weaknesses in yourself is never a solitary struggle. No person can achieve self-mastery on his or her own. Individual will, reason, compassion, and character are not strong enough to consistently defeat selfishness, pride, greed, and self-deception. Everybody needs redemptive assistance from outside—from family, friends, ancestors, rules, traditions, institutions, exemplars, and, for believers, God. We all need people to tell us when we are wrong, to advise us on how to do right, and to encourage, support, arouse, cooperate, and inspire us along the way.