What Does Your Behavior Say About Who You Are?
By Marcy Kennedy (@MarcyKennedy)
Does our behavior at the worst of times say as much about us as our behavior at the best of times?
At the start of Captain America, Steve Rogers is a ninety-pound asthmatic who’s been turned away from serving in the US military five times, despite their need for soldiers to fight the Nazis.
No one can understand what Dr. Erskine is thinking when he invites Steve to be part of the group of men in the running to become the first in a new generation of “super soldiers” enhanced by the serum Dr. Erskine created. Steve can’t even keep up in any of the exercises or drills they’re put through.
With all the great soldiers in the group, Steve doesn’t understand why he’s the one chosen.
“The serum amplifies everything that is inside,” Dr. Erskine explains. “So, good becomes great. Bad becomes worse. This is why you were chosen.”
Erskine chose Steve because he stood up to bullies, he thought outside the box, and he was willing to sacrifice himself for others. The serum would magnify the good qualities inside Steve, as well as making him physically stronger. If Erskine had chosen the soldier who seemed the obvious choice, the bullying tendencies the man usually controlled would have been intensified.
The rough patches, long days, aches, and disappointments in our lives act like that serum. It can bring out the best in us, but it can also bring out the worst.
When I’m impatient after a long day, or when I’m grumpy because my back hurts, or I’m selfish because I’ve been working for 10 hours straight and I just want to be left alone, I like to think that’s not who I really am. I can easily blame the circumstances. They caused my bad behavior, almost as if they were injected into me from the outside. It wasn’t my fault.
But the truth is, those tendencies must have been there, in me, all along. My circumstances, no matter how sad or frustrating, didn’t create anything.
And what scares me is the thought that perhaps it’s only in those times when we’re tired, hungry, frightened, or stressed when our true selves show up. Our defenses are down, and the unpleasant circumstances serve to magnify what’s at our core and has been there all along.
Both good and bad.
If those qualities are always there, though, it means if we’re aware of our bad qualities, we can work against them when the times are happy. We can cultivate their opposites so that maybe, just maybe, the next time we face the serums of life, what comes out will be better than the time before.
When do you think our true selves show themselves best? When things are good or when things are bad?
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Jan 28, 2013 @ 12:42:28
I think our true selves show all the time, but it can be easier to see our “bad qualities” in bad times. A real test to who we are is when things are bad for our friends, I think. If we are happy, but we take time to be there for our friends who are in a not-so-happy state, that shows we are true friends and care about others just as much as ourselves. That said, I think we all have those days where we are crabby. It’s called being human. There is a difference between being tired and needing time alone, and being a bully who hurts others on purpose. The key is accepting that it is ok to be angry and knowing to take that time alone. Feelings in themselves aren’t bad, it’s what you do with them that can be. At least that’s what I think. 🙂
Jan 28, 2013 @ 15:47:04
You make a really good point that it’s what we do with the emotions that count. When we’re feeling grumpy, we can either take that out on someone else or we can control our snappishness and take some time alone or do something to make ourselves feel better. But isn’t that a testament to who we are as well? Are we the think of person who knows how to handle their grumpy times? Or are we the kind of person who doesn’t care and allows themselves to take it out on others?
Jan 28, 2013 @ 12:59:05
Whoa! Great to have an easy question to answer on this early Monday morning.
I agree that suppressed frustrations tend to show themselves when we are tired. We don’t have the brain cells knocking around, creating Bubble Talk for those things we think but don’t say.
However, I am with Emma that our true selves–good and bad– show in small ways. A good gauge of character might be how a person treats waiters/waitresses. Are they rude and condescending? RED FLAG!
Another? (My personal challenge) Do people unconsciously value their own time over others by being consistently late. RED FLAG! Gloria’s whim has more value than her commitment.
IMHO, people show their true selves in small ways with each encounter, decision, or conversion. I’d hate to think my true self was the person she might have been had my husband tried to talk to me at midnight while I attempted to finish a blog post.
Great topic, as always, Marcy!
Jan 28, 2013 @ 15:36:16
Everyone keeps saying that about Mondays. Maybe I should move these posts to later in the week!
I love your illustration about how people treat waiters and waitresses. One sign to me when we were first daring of how good a man my husband is was how he treated servers. He was so nice to them, like they were some old friend he hadn’t seen in a while.
I’m notorious for always running late. I like to blame it on over-commitment, but all that really says is that I need to grow a backbone and commit to less, doesn’t it 😉
Jan 28, 2013 @ 13:55:53
Good morning Marcy! I haven’t had coffee yet, so this topic is a bit deep for me. Actually a lot of your topics are a bit deep for me lol. BUT:
I think feeling grumpy because your back hurt all day is not a measure of how you handle stress. It’s just grumpy. I think how we handle a major event can let us shine. It’s not just faking cheerful after a bad day. It’s running into the burning building to save someone. It’s sacrificing something you really wanted for the good of someone else. It’s holding someone’s hand when THEY are having a bad day. That’s the measure of our true selves. Even the tiny little things…remembering that your co-worker has a birthday, or that the assistant loves chocolate, or looking out for the little old lady who has trouble with that last step on the stairs…those are the things that matter and show our true selves.
Everybody is allowed to be grumpy every now and then with no bad mark on their character or inner self 🙂
Perhaps the key is “every now and then.” Nobody likes hanging around grumpy guss all the time. Hmmm.
Yep, too deep for no coffee!!! LOL
Jan 28, 2013 @ 15:44:00
If this is how you function without coffee, you must be superwoman after coffee!
I think you did identify the key: once in a while. Because that makes it the exception, not the rule.
I also think who we are when we think no one is watching is a great measure of who we are. It’s easy to do the right thing in public when others will see it, but what about those times when our sacrifice would go unknown and unnoticed by anyone but us. I think that’s a really strong indicator of who we are.
Jan 28, 2013 @ 15:29:56
Lovely post, Marcy! I think, even though we may have those things in us all the time and they come out when things get rough, it doesn’t necessarily define who we are. Everyone gets crabby after a bad day, but that doesn’t mean everyone is crabby all the time. After all, everyone is happy after a good day, too, so you always have that happiness inside you just as you always have the crabbiness inside you. Doesn’t mean you’re always one or the other 🙂
Jan 28, 2013 @ 15:50:28
Thanks 🙂 Perhaps one important thing to do is to learn how to hang on to the happy so that it helps carry us through the other times.
Jan 28, 2013 @ 15:32:12
I think it’s more about the overall picture. Someone who’s dealing with a chronic medical condition, but is still able to maintain a positive attitude is a positive person. Someone whose life is going well, but is grumpy a lot of the time, isn’t. It’s also about how we act when no one’s looking: are we an anonymous troll on forums and blogs, or do we disagree respectfully, and own our words? Do we constantly belittle people who aren’t around, or have honest likes and dislikes?
Jan 28, 2013 @ 15:49:22
My grandma is a good example. When she had cancer, she was one of the most positive and encouraging people you’d ever want to meet. She helped everyone around her keep a positive mindset.
I like the dichotomies you drew. There are two sides to almost every action–the good and helpful side and the bad and hurtful side. It’s up to us to decide which side we want to walk on.
Jan 28, 2013 @ 16:41:50
Interesting topic…remindes me a lot of Larry Brooks’ discussion on the three dimensions of character. I think there are a lot of little things we can observe in a person, or ourselves, and think we’re seeing the person…but what we’re really seeing is what the present to the world, either acively or unconciously. If we know the person we might know enough about them to put some of that into context and start to understand, but it’s still only a start. Not until things start to get tight do we see someone’s true character, and honestly not until then do we see our own a lot of the time too.
Jan 30, 2013 @ 03:54:14
I agree. I’ve often thought it would benefit couples if they had to face some hardship together before marriage. They’d learn a lot about themselves, about each other, and about whether they should really be together or not.
Jan 28, 2013 @ 16:47:35
I think you hit on a very important truth there at the end–it is our awareness of our shortcoming that make us who we are.
There’s such a big difference between being crabby and impatient and not liking that part of ourselves, and being crabby and impatient and not seeing this as a flaw.
Great post!
Angela
Jan 30, 2013 @ 03:55:42
Good point! If we don’t see our flaws or don’t see them as flaws, that makes them much worse than if we see them, don’t like them, and are trying to get rid of them.
Jan 28, 2013 @ 17:02:15
I love this saying: You don’t know what kind of tea bag you are until you’re in hot water.
I think many scenarios bring out our true colors—hardship and fame being biggies. Such an insightful post, Marcy. Thank you. 🙂
Jan 30, 2013 @ 03:51:17
That’s one of Lisa’s favorite sayings.
Fame…definitely a double-edged sword. We want to be successful, and yet we have to find a way to stay who we are even while we’re standing on a pedestal. The key for that one I think is to cultivate character before we ever find fame and to keep people around us who can take us down a notch if need be 🙂
Jan 28, 2013 @ 17:49:42
Hmmm, good thoughts! I liked that part of Captain America because there’s so much we can learn from the apparent “underdog” becoming the superhero. 🙂 Equating circumstances with a serum is definitely something to think about.
Jan 30, 2013 @ 03:52:49
Thanks 🙂 The doctor went on the point out that Captain America will always respect strength because he knows what it is to be weak. I guess that’s another lesson we can learn from Captain America’s underdog story.
Jan 29, 2013 @ 00:59:37
I see that Gloria and Melinda noted it’s more the little things. We are human, and we are going to have bad days, and bad traits are not the bane of our existence.
But there is something distinct about what we call “good folks”…. We see them as gentler, even when they don’t have to be, or when things are not going well for them; we notice when they try to lift up someone else, even if it might possibly diminish their own standing someday. And we want to be like them inside.
I loved your story about your grandmother. I can even relate, since my grandmother is the same way. The day she had to go in for breast cancer surgery, she made the doctor reschedule her…. There was a church dinner to raise money for an elevator for the disabled at their church, and she had spent the week before making 300 hundred pies to serve at it, and she delivered, helped serve those pies and then drove to the hospital to have a breast removed.
What a great post. Thanks, Marcy.
Jan 30, 2013 @ 03:57:08
It sounds like our grandmothers would get along well. Mine was baking pies for the church bake sale even when she was so weak from chemo and radiation that she had to sit while working and nap while the pies were cooking. That kind of self-sacrifice and putting others first is something we can all aspire to.
Jan 30, 2013 @ 21:50:42
I’d like to think they would have too. We can learn a lot from people, not just our family members… Thanks for inspiring a bit of Aspiration.
Jan 29, 2013 @ 02:08:20
Interesting post Marcy. And yes, you do get our brains thinking early on in the week. That’s okay, their just a little rusty from the weekend. lol. I’d like to think that who we truly are is who we portray to be. For we cannot fake it for long if it’s not who we really are. We all have faults and they are part of our inherent character. That doesn’t necesarily make us a bad person. It just means that we are multifaceted, which I think makes us much more interesting of a person, don’t you? 🙂
Jan 30, 2013 @ 03:47:38
I suppose it’s better to get those rusty brains working than to drop a topic like this on brains growing tired from a long week 🙂
I’ve known some very good fakers, but even they can’t keep it up all the time. Someone close to them sees through them. So I suppose one safeguard we could have is checking in with the people closest to us, eh 🙂
Jan 29, 2013 @ 03:41:19
Great post, Marcy, and a great discussion. I would agree with Melinda and several others here. It’s not so much how we react to little things, unless we’re constantly pretty obnoxious or negative. We all have our bad moments.
It’s more about how we respond when the chips are really down. I so love that line, August. You don’t know what kind of tea bag you are until you’re in hot water.
I’ve got a fairly intense personality and can be hard to take at times (I sometimes get on my own nerves), but my friends know that when things are going totally haywire in their lives, I will drop everything to help in any way I can. I’m never going to be a gentle person. It’s just not in my make-up, but I hope overall I will be judged as a good person.
And definitely self-awareness is a crucial element. Trying to recognize our flaws and overcome them. Which ties in to another thought I had while reading your post and the comments.
Intentions. If the person’s overall intention is to do good, and be a good person, that counts for something, even if they screw up sometimes. Whereas someone with malicious intentions, when they do something ‘good’, it’s usually with some ulterior motive.
Hmm, I’m not sure I’m making much sense here. This is a bit profound for the tail end of the day as well, but I enjoyed the post.
Jan 30, 2013 @ 04:04:49
You made sense to me. I especially loved the point you made about how a “bad” person always has ulterior motives even for the seemingly good things they do. Motive matters.
On the other side of it, I think when someone does something with good intentions, with their heart in the right place, that should count as well, even if they don’t succeed, perhaps making things worse. In my mind, they should get credit for wanting the good and trying for it even if their execution was flawed.
Jan 29, 2013 @ 18:50:29
I think we are each made up of the best and worst attributes, and as many have pointed out, it’s what we DO with those qualities that counts most. Being “good” all the time isn’t the same as WANTING to be “good” all the time. Although the road to hell is paved with good intentions (so “they” say), I believe the road goes both directions. Without good intentions, how else can we possible measure our failings? If darkness is merely the absence of light, then a bad mood is surely only indicative of a character who has briefly fallen and needs a rest. Otherwise, we wouldn’t call it a mood; that person would be known as a super meanie-pants jerk-face. I’m going to hope that the good in me outshines the bad, and that those I love know the “real” me: a person with a good heart who sometimes just messes up, and because of my good heart, is quick with a sincere and humble apology.
Jan 30, 2013 @ 03:41:46
True enough about calling it a “mood.” Being in a bad mood is temporary whereas being a nasty person is a character quality. And I’ll keep striving, because I think there is value in good intentions. Thanks for the thought-provoking comment!
Jan 29, 2013 @ 19:46:43
I’m going to have to agree with much of what I’ve seen here in the comments. Our true selves aren’t what’s underneath, the ick that comes out when we’re too tired, stressed, or in pain. Our true selves are what we choose to focus on, and most of us choose to be decent, caring human beings.
Sometimes situations are such that it’s nearly impossible to be our sweet, considerate selves.
Shopping stresses me out more than just about anything in the world. When I’ve told my kids dozens of times, when I get home, just leave me alone for half an hour. Let me chill out…and they don’t, and I get even more irritable, whose fault is that? I don’t think it’s mine. Technically it’s a post-accident thing that’s getting better, but I’m still not quite there.
That doesn’t mean that’s who I am deep down though. Who I really am is the person I strive to be every day.
I’m still catching up on some sleep, so if that didn’t make any sense, I apologize. The thoughts are floating around a brain that just wants a nap. 🙂
Jan 30, 2013 @ 03:44:22
It made perfect sense to me. And I’m glad to hear I’m not alone when it comes to shopping. Definitely not my favorite activity.
I think in a situation like what you mentioned, the responsibility should be shared. The people we love should know enough to avoid pushing our buttons when we’ve repeatedly warned them where the buttons are. And we’ll have to keep working on staying calm even when the buttons are pushed 🙂 (I’m not the best at that yet…)