Selfishness, neuroticism, and other "bad" traits (Part 1)
A friend of mine read my last post and she liked it (yay!), BUT she said "it made me wonder, if people are judging me, what are they saying?!" Oops; there's an unintended consequence! Hopefully that hasn't happened for anyone else and, if it has, my sincerest apologies.
I decided I'd continue on and discuss ideas around judgement; specifically about the immediate negative judgement we jump to when we hear words like "selfish" or "neurotic". Now, these are only two examples of 'bad' personality traits that I chose because I personally find them applicable, but you can apply this post to your... um... favourite traits (which you don't have to admit publicly, because it turns out that's more stressful than I thought it would be!). Moving on...
We're all different in how we respond to being labelled with traits; we have a range of experiences and backgrounds, so we pick out different meanings and behave accordingly. Despite this, we do have one thing in common: usually we focus on the label as being either 'good' or 'bad'. If I asked you to name 10 good and 10 bad traits, you could probably come up with that list relatively easily, right? The problem here is that, by splitting your perceptions into either/or, you divide the world into black and white categories.
("But not everything is 'grey'... some things ARE black and white"... well, that depends on your belief system and arguments can be made either way. The utility in arguing this only serves to avoid the overall point I'm trying to make, and therefore reduces your ability to get benefit from this post. As always, I'm happy for you to get in contact with me to discuss!)
I'm going to hone my focus into three questions:
1) Why is being selfish or neurotic (or your chosen trait) inherently 'bad'? (part 1)
2) Why are we so determined to avoid the 'bad' things about us? (part 2)
3) If you do engage with the 'bad' things about you, do you truly accept them or weaponise them? (part 3)
Question 1: Why is being selfish or neurotic, or *insert trait here* inherently 'bad'?
We hear these words and assume they are 'bad'; the negative connotations are the only important ones to us. This is evolutionarily useful because categorising reduces our energy expenditure and allows us to predict the world to stay safe/alive. It is not useful all the time though because when we automatically make these 'bad' attributions, the person we attribute them to becomes 'bad' also. When that person is ourselves, the consequences can range from self-hatred to avoidant defensiveness (and anger at whomever dare insinuate we are *insert trait here*).
The thing to remember is that everything, no seriously, everything, in life is 2+ sided. Nothing is only one 'thing'. We have evolved to survive, therefore, every single trait we have is useful in some context... it just might not be useful in the context in which you are using it. Chances are it was useful in your life before the present moment (typical psychotherapist going back to your childhood), either as a kid, in a past relationship, a past job, etc. What's important is perception (yes, that old chestnut: "nothing is ever good or bad, but thinking makes it so"). Let's apply this...
Being selfish is 'bad' for obvious reasons I won't take up space listing. I want to play Devil's advocate and argue that it's also good, both for you and the people around you. It keeps you from overextending yourself and burning out, which gives you more energy and time to spend on children, relationships, work, and other things that are important to you.
(Yes, I know I just made an example of selfishness being good so that you can give back to other people, which isn't selfish, but in investing in your relationships you benefit your own happiness, life expectancy, support system, etc., so realistically putting energy into others is still selfish...)
I won't give any more examples for the sake of space, but it would be worthwhile for you to take some time and come up with a few more ways in which selfishness can be useful (or 'good' if that's an easier way to think about it).
Now let's take neuroticism - broadly defined as higher reactivity to negative emotional states - and consider how this may be useful or 'good'. I'll use a personal example (as those who know me know that I do score relatively highly on this trait!): In my job as a psychotherapist it is really important for me to be able to read people and gauge their reactions so I can respond appropriately, understand, and piece together the 'puzzle' that is their experiences. Being neurotic and oversensitive to changes in others' emotional experiences allows me to do this without much overt information from the other person; it could be a mild change in tone of voice or a shift in facial expression, but my neurotic anxiety alarm goes off (that should be a clinical term...) and I am able to empathise and form a hypothesis about their experience based off this change. So, this trait that no one ever wants to score highly on can come in handy!
Again, for the sake of space, I'll leave it there. If you don't find these examples relevant for your experiences, insert different traits (things you hope no one ever says about you, or something you've been called before that you hated) and consider how they are useful for you, or how they have benefitted you in the past. This will help you understand how you have become the person you are. Being mindful of this allows you to choose whether you want to keep applying this trait as often as you do.
Remember, the world isn't black or white... choose to Think Gray!
(see what I did there)
I decided I'd continue on and discuss ideas around judgement; specifically about the immediate negative judgement we jump to when we hear words like "selfish" or "neurotic". Now, these are only two examples of 'bad' personality traits that I chose because I personally find them applicable, but you can apply this post to your... um... favourite traits (which you don't have to admit publicly, because it turns out that's more stressful than I thought it would be!). Moving on...
We're all different in how we respond to being labelled with traits; we have a range of experiences and backgrounds, so we pick out different meanings and behave accordingly. Despite this, we do have one thing in common: usually we focus on the label as being either 'good' or 'bad'. If I asked you to name 10 good and 10 bad traits, you could probably come up with that list relatively easily, right? The problem here is that, by splitting your perceptions into either/or, you divide the world into black and white categories.
("But not everything is 'grey'... some things ARE black and white"... well, that depends on your belief system and arguments can be made either way. The utility in arguing this only serves to avoid the overall point I'm trying to make, and therefore reduces your ability to get benefit from this post. As always, I'm happy for you to get in contact with me to discuss!)
I'm going to hone my focus into three questions:
1) Why is being selfish or neurotic (or your chosen trait) inherently 'bad'? (part 1)
2) Why are we so determined to avoid the 'bad' things about us? (part 2)
3) If you do engage with the 'bad' things about you, do you truly accept them or weaponise them? (part 3)
Question 1: Why is being selfish or neurotic, or *insert trait here* inherently 'bad'?
We hear these words and assume they are 'bad'; the negative connotations are the only important ones to us. This is evolutionarily useful because categorising reduces our energy expenditure and allows us to predict the world to stay safe/alive. It is not useful all the time though because when we automatically make these 'bad' attributions, the person we attribute them to becomes 'bad' also. When that person is ourselves, the consequences can range from self-hatred to avoidant defensiveness (and anger at whomever dare insinuate we are *insert trait here*).
The thing to remember is that everything, no seriously, everything, in life is 2+ sided. Nothing is only one 'thing'. We have evolved to survive, therefore, every single trait we have is useful in some context... it just might not be useful in the context in which you are using it. Chances are it was useful in your life before the present moment (typical psychotherapist going back to your childhood), either as a kid, in a past relationship, a past job, etc. What's important is perception (yes, that old chestnut: "nothing is ever good or bad, but thinking makes it so"). Let's apply this...
Being selfish is 'bad' for obvious reasons I won't take up space listing. I want to play Devil's advocate and argue that it's also good, both for you and the people around you. It keeps you from overextending yourself and burning out, which gives you more energy and time to spend on children, relationships, work, and other things that are important to you.
(Yes, I know I just made an example of selfishness being good so that you can give back to other people, which isn't selfish, but in investing in your relationships you benefit your own happiness, life expectancy, support system, etc., so realistically putting energy into others is still selfish...)
I won't give any more examples for the sake of space, but it would be worthwhile for you to take some time and come up with a few more ways in which selfishness can be useful (or 'good' if that's an easier way to think about it).
Now let's take neuroticism - broadly defined as higher reactivity to negative emotional states - and consider how this may be useful or 'good'. I'll use a personal example (as those who know me know that I do score relatively highly on this trait!): In my job as a psychotherapist it is really important for me to be able to read people and gauge their reactions so I can respond appropriately, understand, and piece together the 'puzzle' that is their experiences. Being neurotic and oversensitive to changes in others' emotional experiences allows me to do this without much overt information from the other person; it could be a mild change in tone of voice or a shift in facial expression, but my neurotic anxiety alarm goes off (that should be a clinical term...) and I am able to empathise and form a hypothesis about their experience based off this change. So, this trait that no one ever wants to score highly on can come in handy!
Again, for the sake of space, I'll leave it there. If you don't find these examples relevant for your experiences, insert different traits (things you hope no one ever says about you, or something you've been called before that you hated) and consider how they are useful for you, or how they have benefitted you in the past. This will help you understand how you have become the person you are. Being mindful of this allows you to choose whether you want to keep applying this trait as often as you do.
Remember, the world isn't black or white... choose to Think Gray!
(see what I did there)
Sophie Gray
sophie.gray@thinkgray.com
www.thinkgray.com
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