SVD Postulancy

By: Post. Mark Jhonsel “Botig” Palado

People are not defined by their personalities, nor can personality alone determine what kind of person they truly are. Rather, personality can serve as a way of understanding people and gaining insight into who they are.

The first module we had in September was Personality Styles, facilitated by Fr. Rogie Quingca, SCJ. Through this module, I learned that a person can possess more than one personality style, which may be consciously or unconsciously manifested throughout their lives. It is important to understand that having a particular personality style does not make a person ambiguous or contradictory. Instead, these different styles are part of the complexity and uniqueness of every individual.

Among the personality styles that I commonly notice in myself and in the people I know are Leisurely, Conscientious, Devoted, and Idiosyncratic. A Leisurely personality style tends to avoid exerting more effort than what is required, while a Conscientious person tends to invest considerable effort in matters and values things that are well-defined, organized, and carefully carried out. The Devoted personality style, on the other hand, is often characterized by being supportive and accommodating. Such individuals may be less inclined to argue and may instead choose to cooperate or follow others. Meanwhile, an Idiosyncratic personality style reflects creativity and imagination, often allowing a person to envision possibilities before acting on them. For such individuals, imagination becomes a way of expanding their understanding of reality. These four personality styles are only a few of the fourteen styles that I encountered and learned about in the module.

One of the most significant realizations I gained is that we do not simply choose which personality styles we have. Rather, we come to know and understand them through our experiences, actions, circumstances, and interactions with others. Becoming aware of our personality styles allows us to better understand ourselves, but it should not become a reason to place ourselves or others into fixed categories. More importantly, our understanding of personality should lead us toward empathy—to empathize rather than judge, and to understand rather than define people solely by how they appear to us.

To define someone based only on a particular personality style is to close ourselves off from discovering who that person truly is. In doing so, we risk losing our curiosity about others—the very curiosity that allows relationships to grow and genuine friendships to develop. Perhaps the deeper lesson of understanding personality styles is not learning how to label people, but learning how to look beyond the labels. After all, knowing someone’s personality may help us understand how they respond to the world, but choosing to understand their story is what allows us to truly connect with them.