(This is my own interpretation.)

I was presented with a very interesting question today which triggered a massive tsunami of thoughts and arguments at the back of my head.

“What is the difference between personality and character?”

It was easy for me to just put a textbook definition to the two words, but as I brainstormed over that question in a group discussion, it began to open up to me.

‘Personality’ is who you are. It is what you are made of: “A combination of emotional, attitudinal, and behavioral response patterns (Source: Wikipedia).” Although everyone is wired differently, there are a few categories that we can be classified in, which can be measured with personality tests such as the Myers-Briggs and the DISC assessment.

Having understood that, your personality is a big part of who you are. Maybe you don’t like who you are, but the truth is you may tweak and make changes to your personality, but you won’t be able to totally transform something that has been with you all throughout your growing up stages. I remembered reading something from long ago, that an individual’s personality is set for life once he turns 13 or 21 years old, but I can’t seem to recall the exact details.

On the other hand, ‘Character’ is a role that an individual plays. Take video games for an example, you select a character. This character is who you would like to be, who you would like to be portrayed as and to show the world.

Your character determines the role you play. Quite literally, if your character was Ryu in Street Fighter, you would be a Japanese black-belt martial artist.

In essence, your character is metaphorically just a costume that is worn by your personality. Your personality is the skeleton that holds the costume up. You can have a lousy personality, i.e. ill-mannered, insensitive and blunt, but you can be playing a good character, like the Good Samaritan or Jesus, helping the needy and feeding the hungry. Having a lousy personality does not disqualify you from being a good character.

Similarly, you can have a strong personality, i.e. influential, charismatic, loyal and fearless, but playing the character of a drug dealer and distributing substances for abuse.

Often we are so judgmental about a person’s personality. We magnify the shortcomings of others to make ourselves look good. If only we are able to take a step back and look at their character instead.

I know my personality is flawed. I can be too stubborn, egoistic, arrogant, insensitive, the list is endless.
But I know my character, and as far as I am concerned, the words on my neck are there for a reason,

And they still read “Proven Character”.

I have only been in a traffic accident once, when a Honda City rear-ended my old Corolla that I had during my National Service days. That was nothing severe, the only thing that was damaged was my license plate.

Yesterday was a little different. The night before, I only slept for 3 hours because I stayed up to watch Chelsea’s FA Cup Semi-final match. After a long Monday at work, the only thing I looked forward to was to go home, have dinner and get a good sleep.

At around 6pm, I was driving down Clementi Road, less than 15 minutes away from home, when I looked up at my rear-view mirror and saw this Trans-Cab taxi coming fast towards me. I braced for the crash and in less than a second later, my body jerked forward upon impact.

I would say that I was extremely lucky because I already saw the taxi coming and hence, was able to prepare myself for the impact.

On the other hand, the taxi driver was extremely unlucky to catch me on a bad day. I was already very cranky and looked forward to going home, and this had to happen. While the cabbie insisted that we settle this privately and that he was willing to pay me $500-600 cash, I told him that we will do things my way and stop wasting my time.

Took photos of both vehicles, took down all his particulars, and made him sign an agreement that he is liable for all my damages, then I told him to leave and wait for my call.

At around 8pm, my head started to hurt.
I headed down to NUH but the estimated waiting time was 4 hours, so I proceeded to Alexandra Hospital’s A&E instead.
Paid a total of $83 for consultation, x-ray, painkillers and 2-days MC.

Finally reached home at around 11.30pm, courtesy of Shu Heng who came all day way down to make sure that I was okay and he drove me back!

Drove to Kah Motor this morning and decided to do a full claim for my damages. Estimated repair costs were $6000-7000 because my entire hatch has to be replaced, and repair would take about 2 weeks. On top of that, my medical compensation would be about $500 for each day that I am on MC. Called the cabbie and told him to let the insurance companies settle. Of course he was unhappy to hear that, but he didn’t argue with me.

So meanwhile, this is my temporary ride from Kah Motor. 🙂

Quite worth it huh?
Guess it’s only worth it when you are the victim.

“Leave me alone.”
“I need some time on my own.”

But the truth is, no man is an island. We are created to be relational, social, and inter-dependent beings. It is at moments when we feel our lowest that we need people to be there for us, people we can count on, which is why the biggest mistake that we can ever make is to lie to ourselves that we want to be alone. It is easy to be on our own when things are all smooth sailing, but when the going gets tough and things get difficult to cope with, it is always better to have someone to share your burdens with.

No matter how you look at it, two is always better than one.

Just take these scenarios for an example, it is definitely conducive to study alone, but having a study buddy together with you for consultation, guidance and discussion, is always better! Similarly, it is always good to be doing your daily devotions alone in your room, but the place of agreement is the place of power and it is definitely better to have someone to pray together with. Likewise, while most people shower alone, showering with someone else can save water and also have them to scrub your back for you.

I learnt this very important lesson because during times when I was at my lowest, I wanted to be alone but my friends never let me. They were always there for me, to encourage me when I am discouraged, to lift me up when I am down, and to strengthen me when I am feeling weak. For that, I am eternally grateful.

This goes out to all of my friends, the people who were always there for me.
Thanks for sowing into my life, you can count on me as much as I can count on you.

What does it mean to be genuine?

There are a lot of ways how a person can be fake, but I am not going to blog about that, because there is only ONE way how you can be genuine.

To be genuine, you just need to be natural.

You don’t have to hide anything.
You can be truly transparent, authentic, and comfortable, without any pressure to conform.

But in the first place, why would there be anything to hide?
Unless your conscience isn’t clear, which is of course, since you are doing things behind people’s backs and hoping nobody would ever find out.

Acting, unless you are from Hollywood, is considered unnatural for most of us. It is difficult to live out and portray a character that we are not. Hence, being natural would mean that you do not have to act and behave like somebody that isn’t the real you. Doing so, would make you a hypocrite. A man with two faces, and nobody actually knows which one is authentic.

You could be all for something with a certain group of people, and then you could be all against that very same thing when you are with another group of people.

That is just shameful.
And, that is certainly not being genuine.

But putting myself in your shoes, perhaps I may have done the same thing.
I might have been fearful of disagreeing with people because I don’t want them to lose their respect for me, and I certainly wouldn’t want to offend any party, so I agree with both sides, even though it would take a lot of effort (and pretense) for me to fit in.
This is done so, with good intents.

You see, the problem is that people will eventually see through you.
What happens when you try too hard to win affection by being insincere?

The golden rule is to just be natural.
Say what you mean, and mean what you say.
I have more respect for someone who is able to stand up for his own opinions, than to try and fit in everywhere.

Based on a true story.

I had a 3-hour meeting with a client today.

One of the things that I really took back.

“Don’t talk to me about budgets. Don’t worry about that. I know how people work. I know. It’s not good for their profits, I know. Their profits are in dollars and cents. But I am also making profit. Just that my profits are in emotions, happiness, customer satisfaction. You can’t set a value or put a price on that. And that is most important.”