Reflections #3: Jigsaw puzzles

A bit of Reality first, would that do? Taylor Swift's Speak Now album isn't that great as Fearless , but I do like Haunted,  Mine, The Story of Us and Better than Revenge. Ooh, and I love Superman and Enchanted and Speak Now. Bijou thinks that her songs are more sophisticated. I agree too.


It's funny how I don't want to talk about the marks now that I have them. It's probably because I'm very grateful for my marks deep down, despite all that I say. I'm either a complete hypocrite or just confused about my feelings. I hope it's the latter.

 I felt like a loner again today. Actually, now that I think about it, allowing myself to feel lonely and pitiful is really, really stupid. I should do something instead of wallowing in my self-pity.

Anyway, today was uneventful except for the behavioral/ leadership type seminar.At first, I was quite skeptical about the leadership thing-only mildly interested but on knowing that it was to do with behaviour, I got sort of hyped up. (My measure of hyped up isn't really high or anything, since I'm quite a passive person under normal conditions). I just love to do those multiple intelligences, personality type, JUNG tests/trials/quizzes. Apparently, we were doing the DISC test.

The seminar was quite in-depth. We covered a relatively large field: Different personality types, Strengths and Weaknesses of different types, Interaction between types and ways to maximise quality of teamwork with different personality types. Actually, we already learnt about DISC, but this time, we didn't just skim the surface of things. Apparently, the results of this test were supposed to be accurate, since we had to do it within seven minutes and hence wouldn't have time to ask people and discuss answers. They even had stars in some questions so as to "work as balancers" so that even biased answers wouldn't be that biased. They also had three ways of measuring DISC namely: Public, Private and Mirror. The number for each component of DISC would be recorded on graphs-one for each way of measuring.

Apparently, for the people I had asked, most of them had greatly varying results for the three graphs. It's strange that my graphs were all pretty much the same. They were shaped like ticks, which makes me think of Nike's Just Do It. Hmm... nice imagery. Apparently, my performance in the public's eye fails compared to my performance privately. There wasn't much difference between the private and mirror (how you see yourself) results. The fact that all three graphs display similar results shows that either I was really honest while I was taking the test, or I can understand myself. This is great! This uniformity paints in such a positive way!

I'm starting to sound like I'm extremely self-conscious. Actually, I've always been self-conscious. Overly self-conscious.  I sound really immature too. It doesn't matter. I'll grow out of this sooner or later.

Now, with regards to the results. By the way, D stands for Dominant, I for Influence, S for Steadiness and C for Conscientious. Since I can't remember the details (even though I'm supposed to be a person who loves details), I've copied the chunk from Wikipedia. It's pretty much the same thing that the trainer told us.

• Dominance: People who score high in the intensity of the "D" styles factor are very active in dealing with problems and challenges, while low "D" scores are people who want to do more research before committing to a decision. High "D" people are described as demanding, forceful, egocentric, strong willed, driving, determined, ambitious, aggressive, and pioneering. Low D scores describe those who are conservative, low keyed, cooperative, calculating, undemanding, cautious, mild, agreeable, modest and peaceful.

• Influence: People with high "I" scores influence others through talking and activity and tend to be emotional. They are described as convincing, magnetic, political, enthusiastic, persuasive, warm, demonstrative, trusting, and optimistic. Those with low "I" scores influence more by data and facts, and not with feelings. They are described as reflective, factual, calculating, skeptical, logical, suspicious, matter of fact, pessimistic, and critical.

• Steadiness: People with high "S" styles scores want a steady pace, security, and do not like sudden change. High "S" individuals are calm, relaxed, patient, possessive, predictable, deliberate, stable, consistent, and tend to be unemotional and poker faced. Low "S" intensity scores are those who like change and variety. People with low "S" scores are described as restless, demonstrative, impatient, eager, or even impulsive.

• Conscientious: People with high "C" styles adhere to rules, regulations, and structure. They like to do quality work and do it right the first time. High "C" people are careful, cautious, exacting, neat, systematic, diplomatic, accurate, and tactful and concerned with details. Those with low "C" scores challenge the rules and want independence and are described as self-willed, stubborn, opinionated, unsystematic, arbitrary, and unconcerned with details.

Those words highlighted in blue are behavioural traits that I think I exhibit. Apparently, my Behavioural type is C,D which means I'm mostly Conscientious and rather Dominant. I've asked a million people two classes and a few other people and only one other person has behavioural type CD.

I find it a little strange that I have CD because I'm not even neat and people only think that I'm analytical, which is only one trait for C. I have been giving it quite a lot of thought and so, I think that I am quite C. For domineering, I am ambitious and demanding, I suppose.

I'm actually quite content with getting CD now that I've thought about it. Awesome people like Albert Einstein and Mozart (or was it Beethoven?) are in my behavioural type I probably won't become as famous as them, but it's good to know that there are awesome people in your behavioural type. I suppose every type has its famous people though!

Actually, I don't really know why I spend so much time pondering about behavioural types. This is perhaps due to my over self-consciousness. Either that, or I'm just being reflective, or over-concerned by details (since this DISC thing is only one part of today). I need to see the big picture of life!

It's like a habit, this caring too much for too many things, of which most turn out to be worthless of attention. Some might say that everybody does that, but personally, I'm not really sure. I really need to be less narrow-minded and look at the big picture. There was this chinese proverb, which I can't remember, about looking at a leopard's spots through a bamboo tube. I suppose that applies to my situation now.

I really, really need to see more of the world to widen my knowledge, so that I can be less narrow-minded. I should also refrain from  judging myself and others  solely based on this DISC system. There's way more to people than what a system reveals. So, I shall stop over-thinking and over-analysing.  In fact, observing more of the world would do me some good.

See the big picture instead of the individual jigsaw puzzles