SUNDAY, JUNE 16, 2024
Eusebio Gomes
God created each one of us differently. We want different things in life, and all of us have different skills, values, beliefs, motives, goals, needs, desires and impulses. Owing to these factors, we have peculiar ways of thinking, understanding and responding to various situations.
At times, we look in the mirror to see whether we look good and attractive or we feel that we could have been taller and smarter. At times, we might have felt low because we did not own a pair of jeans or Apple iPhone. Well, our personality does not exclusively depend on our physical features.
For some people, personality is synonymous with how they look, dress up, and present themselves. Some women buy best cosmetics for make-up in order to colour and beautify their faces. Others emulate film stars and follow them on social networking sites. They want to dress like them, behave like them and appear like them. For parties, some like to wear costliest dresses and jewelleries in order to impress upon others. Some hanker after wealthy ornaments such as gold, pearls and diamonds and wear golden chains and diamond necklaces to appear attractive and fanciful. In the story ‘The Necklace’ by Guy de Maupassant, the lady Madame Mathilde Loisel was beautiful. But she was not happy with her simple life-style. To attend a party, she borrowed a diamond necklace from her neighbour Madame Jeanne Forestier. She looked very attractive with the diamond necklace. To her misfortune, the necklace was stolen while she was at the party. Her husband had to spend all his savings and borrow some francs from others in order to get a duplicate diamond necklace as a replacement for the necklace borrowed from Madame Forestier.
Personality is not limited to the physical appearance of a person or attire. Riches and wealth do not add anything to a person’s personality. Personality reflects person’s thoughts and character. French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte was a man of small built but he managed to conquer a number of countries. He was a great personality. American President Abraham Lincoln and Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw did not look like film stars, yet they were eminent personalities. Helen Keller was visually impaired besides being dumb and deaf, yet she was able to inspire millions of people with her charismatic personality. St Teresa of Kolkata (Mother Teresa) lived a simple life and was always dressed in a plain white cotton sari with a blue border identifying with the poor women who swept the streets in Kolkata. It was her kindness and service to mankind that made her an international ambassador of peace. Politeness, courtesy, self-confidence, wit, wisdom, empathy, judicious nature, enterprise, gender sensitivity, gratitude, compassion and humility are some of the important attributes of a good personality. In fact personality embraces a wide variety of attributes that show the inner and external profile of a person. American industrialist, Charles Michael Schwab said: “Personality is to a man, what fragrance is to a flower.” We need to learn to be more humble, polite, courteous, kind, helpful and empathetic and always meet people with a smile.
