From Ancient Chinese Philosophers: Secret Tips to Evaluate People
Courtesy of J.T.D(http://www.flickr.com/photos/14850096@N03/)
Read this if you find people fascinating and you want to understand your partners better.
I am student of human behaviors. I find people fascinating. Fascinating but equally perplexed.
For example, men’s obsession with cars and women’s obsession with shoes.
I’d like to be able to predict the general behavior of someone.
So over the years I have studied Myers Brigg and other personality typing methodology and body language analysis. And more recently dabbled in the art of handwriting analysis. I learned that there aren’t any silver bullets that can determine someone’s behavior with absolute certainty. Human beings are complex human beings after all. Like Sigmund Freud said: “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.”
This morning I came across a Chinese passage that condenses what I have learned from all the years of watching people in a just few sentences.
to evaluate a man’s character, watch his eyes
to evaluate the worth of a man, watch who he picks as his opponent
to evaluate someone’s potential, watch how he spends time alone
to evaluate someone’s true self, watch people surrounding him
to evaluate someone’s personality, watch how he writes
to evaluate if someone is happy, don’t watch how he smiles, watch the first facial expression when he wakes up in the morning
to evaluate the size of someone’s tolerance, evaluate his reaction during failure and betrayal
to evaluate someone’s courage, watch how he faces death
to evaluate the true relationship between two people, watch how anxious one gets when the other is in danger
As well as I know myself, I tested these statements against myself. Thinking back the moments when I had faced death a few times, the test is accurate. It also gave me an opportunity to evaluate how I have grown over the years. How I acted when I was 5 versus 15 versus 20 and so on.
Take a moment to reflect back how you acted and reacted when you faced the circumstances stated in the quote. Are they accurate?
Hope this helps you gain more clarity in who you are and what you stand for.
