I realize the idiosyncrasies people show the world come from a unified composition of attributes they possess. I have often been miscategorized and mislabeled because of the range I possess as a person. It is incredibly frustrating that people make so many assumptions about me without truly knowing me. I have also witnessed this type of treatment of other people. Yet so many people passively accept the labels people place upon them. They perceive the personality labels thrust upon them as their enduring identity. They are unable to see that they are more than the single version of themselves. However, is it possible that the version of who they are is the version that the world has seen the most? I realize there are parts of us that people know, and there are also parts of us that people never see. Still, those other parts exist; they are authentic and definite components of who we are. However, there are many times when we feel pretentious for occasionally displaying the qualities that people do not usually see from us. People associate us with the part that they have seen the longest. We feel that if others have not witnessed certain behaviors from us before, then those behaviors must be inauthentic to us. We also feel that if we have not demonstrated attributes often enough, they aren’t genuine parts of our personality. However, I emphatically disagree with this widely accepted belief. I propose that there are many parts of us, and we don’t have to be only one version of ourselves to be considered real.
I remember when I was planning my wedding. I went to a diner to discuss the process with a few of my closest friends. It was a very big task, and something I’d never done at that level before. While we were talking, one friend wanted to steer me in the right direction and offer me keen advice. Because he did not know the full capacity of my range, he commented, “Marvin, you are good at socializing with people and making them feel comfortable. You should focus on your strengths and let other people worry about the planning part. That is not your strong suit.” I remember feeling tight and a bit bothered, perhaps more than I should have. On my drive home, those thoughts echoed a little bit more. Were those attributes all that people see? Were my best qualities only limited to socialization and making people feel warm and welcome? What my friend did not know was that there were other parts of me. I was very capable of planning. I felt I had planned things in the past. Perhaps not to the magnitude of a wedding, but I had successfully executed plans in the past. I was not intimidated by the task before me. This experience reminded me that people could know you but still not know all of you. However, my friend was not wrong for perceiving me that way. It was the only part of me that he had seen. He did not see the parts that were organizing spreadsheets and meticulously planning budgets. He did not see the way I executed my day-to-day life: the way I managed my finances, the way I allotted time for all the things and people in my life. The parts of me described by my friend were indeed accurate. I was warm and social and did enjoy spending time with people. However, that was not the limit of my abilities. After that assessment, I felt a little bit more urgency and perhaps even motivation to make my wedding planning a success. That experience helped me to see that there are unknown parts of us that people close to us, family and friends, never witness. This is simply because they only see us in a specific capacity. My coworkers have only witnessed my personality at work, which is a little bit more demure, pleasant but serious. Similarly, close friends have seen the more jovial and playful side of me and have not witnessed me executing more serious tasks. My family has seen a mixture of many of those parts, but not entirely.
The person we are at work may not look like the person we are with our children or our close friends and family. The person we are when participating in competitive sports may not look like the person who enjoys quiet time and does reflective journaling. The person who is fun-loving and socially expressive on vacation may not look like the person who appears reticent and deeply contemplative at work. However, these are diverse attributes of the same person, just operating on different parts of the person’s color palette. I believe there are several distinctive gradations of our personality that are shaped by different conditions. We come into this world with a predilection towards certain traits, carrying a type of energy we were wired with. I believe this aspect is our biological component, and it is the color that we arrive with. It is extremely significant in forging our identity, but it does not tell the full story. Our upbringing and our life experiences are perhaps even more influential in shaping the people we become. This is the part of our personality that is based on experience. Experience is the undercurrent that shapes us. However, that does not paint the full portrait of the people we grow into. In life, we make choices. Life presents numerous occasions for us to make decisions that ultimately affect the type of people we become. Those choices have consequences. Each choice we make has an influential impact on us because it is a willful expression of who we are internally. Therefore, repeated choices over time meaningfully contribute to the person we ultimately become. So choice is the third component of our personalities. Consequently, the combination of biology, experience, and choice creates the person we are today.
BxExC = Biology, Experience, Choice; these are the core drivers of our lives. These drivers do not exist as linear individual factors; rather, they have an interaction effect that influences how someone responds to the forces in their life. Hue, Undertone, Expression, and Shade explain how biology, experience, and choice are manifested and demonstrated in one’s life, in the patterns of one’s personality, mentality, and behavior. Where BxExC ultimately shapes the foundational elements of one’s life, Hue, Undertone, Expression, and Shade are the interpretive layer that explains how that process is experienced.
I came into this world with a bent towards being reserved and compliant. This was my hue. Then my environment, family, friends, and overall surroundings influenced and impacted the way I expressed myself. That was my undertone. Consequently, I became more vocal, more expressive, and more impulsive. That was my expression. That lasted for several years, throughout my teens and early twenties. However, as I grew older and did more self-reflection, I started reverting to introspection, restraint, and calculation. That was what I reinforced intentionally, which became my shade. The result is a more measured, reserved, and demure person today.
During my expressive, impulsive years, I found myself in many situations where I wished I could undo or redo things. Not that expressiveness itself was a bad thing; there were many situations where expressiveness served me well. There were also times in my life when expressiveness was needed but was absent. So, expressiveness was not the problem; the issue was that I had suppressed my ability to be self-disciplined. My words weren’t carefully considered, and my actions weren’t measured. I have said things to people without thinking of the impact my words would have on them. Although I did not intend to cause offense, pain, or damage relationships, my careless words resulted in offense, emotional pain, and damaged relationships. Oftentimes, these people were the ones closest to me, people that I loved and cared for deeply. I wish I could take back those words. There were also instances where I was quick to take on pursuits that were not as rewarding. There was one particular instance where I had recklessly invested money in a friend’s business. I did not approach the decision with the level of caution it deserved. Instead, I only looked at the potential rewards and did not bear in mind the many possible risks. The result was a complete financial loss. Consequently, I was filled with disappointment and regret. That experience taught me an expensive but vital lesson about being overzealous and blindly optimistic about the benefits without counting the cost and considering the risk. I learned to slow down and to integrate the circumspect behavior that I had always demonstrated up until that time of uncontrolled expression and impulsivity. Somehow, I had suppressed the part of me that is deliberate or resolute. From those experiences, I have learned that restraint and carefully studied approaches produce valuable results in my life.
Overall, I want people to own the aspects of their personalities that are unutilized. There is a natural by-product: feeling more whole when people embrace unfamiliar parts of themselves. Consequently, I want people to reconsider their permanent classification of others as well as themselves. I want them to know that growth is possible for them and to find psychological redemption by experiencing a noticeable change. I want them to have accountability and still have self-forgiveness. They no longer have to berate or chastise themselves for past mistakes once they have decisively chosen to practice another behavior. I want them to deliberately choose to cultivate and develop abilities that they have not yet been acquainted with. In addition to change, I want them to consider their range: to know that there is more to them than the labels and boxes of restrictive categories. I want them to see that they have at their disposal a lot more colors in their palette to work with. I also want them to see the possibilities in others by looking again and looking more deeply.
My ultimate objective is that I leave people with the idea that they are more than the limits they impose on themselves or allow others to foist upon them. As humans, we should not be too quick to form a definitive judgment of our personalities. We are not rigidly fixed into only being one way. There is a great degree of flexibility. We are pliable and adaptable. Humans possess far more diversity and abilities than we are aware of. We are perpetually adapting to a changing world. We possess an internal capacity to grow, learn, and evolve. Many of the solutions that are needed to meet that change already reside within us. We are complex and layered, with the potential to do far more than we imagine. We are more than our first impressions. This includes the impressions we have of ourselves and the impressions we form of others.
The labels that people readily consent to are restrictive and repressive. People are ultimately imprisoned by these labels. We exist far more expansively than we imagine. Every individual possesses an inherent range of attributes that are genuine and unique to that individual. You are infinitely more than you think. I challenge you to reach inside yourself for more. It is essential that you freely embrace all inherent aspects of your personality. By doing so, you will find an assemblage of art to share with the world.