I love happy, positive people

[Mick Mac]

I'm just not naturally one myself. I excuse myself believing that your personality is part of your genetic make up. Am I right.

[indiepanda]

Think psychologists would say there's an element which is genetic and an element that's up to you - much like your likelihood of getting various illnesses which have a genetic component.

I used to be quite a Victor Meldrew when I was younger but am much more positive now, at least in part because I've worked at being more positive - was terrified of turning into my miserable mother who stresses about everything and anything (most of it in her imagination rather than real)

[????]

I was really positive, up for a laugh, etc etc...kids, the Man, my mortality, all ground me down...: (

[uncleglen]

If you mean those ebullient types then I think they are in denial and are over-acting. If they are trying to make me enthusiastic about stuff then their ebullience does not work because I rather prefer to think carefully and quietly about the matters in hand. And I don't think that personality has any genetic basis unless it is a manifestation of some genetically linked chemical imbalance.

[HonaloochieB]

Mick Mac Wrote:

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> I'm just not naturally one myself. I excuse myself

> believing that your personality is part of your

> genetic make up. Am I right.

Or are you right? Course y'ar ya big ungrammatical-question mark-forgettin' lug. C'mere fer a man hug ya big dope.

[Mick Mac]

I thought about the question mark before I pressed enter HB but I thought, go for it, make a mistake and enjoy it.

[HonaloochieB]

All the more reason fer the man-hug, c'mere ya big ol' Mick.

[Saffron]

Personality traits are broadly heritable, but it seems current thought is that environment plays about an equal part.

In psychology, the Big Five personality traits are five broad domains or dimensions of personality that are used to describe human personality. The theory based on the Big Five factors is called the Five Factor Model (FFM)[1] The Big Five factors are openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.

The Big five has been preferably used, since it is able to measure different traits in personality without overlapping. During studies, the Big Five personality traits show consistency in interviews, self-descriptions, and when observed.[2] Acronyms commonly used to refer to the five traits collectively are OCEAN, NEOAC, or CANOE. Beneath each factor, a cluster of correlated specific traits is found; for example, extraversion includes such related qualities as gregariousness, assertiveness, excitement seeking, warmth, activity, and positive emotions.

...

Twin studies suggest that heritability and environmental factors equally influence all five factors to the same degree.[57] Among four recent twin studies, the mean percentage for heritability was calculated for each personality and it was concluded that heritability influenced the five factors broadly. The self-report measures were as follows: openness to experience was estimated to have a 57% genetic influence, extraversion 54%, conscientiousness 49%, neuroticism 48%, and agreeableness 42%.

So, did I get my neuroticism from my mother's genes, or I did I pick it up from her by sharing the same environment? Hmmm...

I like to think I'm a positive person, but I wouldn't say I'm ebullient (or in denial, and definitely not over-acting). They're not synonymous. In any event, I'm ok with sad, grumpy, negative people too. Hugs all around! :)

[womanofdulwich]

I always think alcohol makes me into one of those happy people.....................

[Marmora Man]

Mick Mac - you seemed a happy man at the Supper Club? Good food and wine can do that to a person.

I do't know about Saffron's suggestion but I've always found Myers Briggs a good indicator of style in people. Me - I'm broadly optimistic about life and people (and an easy mark for a con artist!)

[Alan Medic]

You'd hate me Mick.

[Burbage]

The trouble with psychology is that, at best, it's primitive. We don't really know who we are, and the nearest we can ever get is by training people to make theoretical painting-by-numbers portraits of us. The finished work might, at best, give a few broad hints about what might be supposed to be there, but it's never nearly as good as the picture on the box.

This is bad news in many ways, especially for happy people. One of the few things that we do know is that our mood is broadly governed by the dictatorial oozings of our gelatinous brains, things which have, over the millennia, grown to a half-evolved state where they're good enough to make nearly the best of what happens to be at hand, subject to the grubbily selfish motives of molecular biology. Some brains ooze in such a way as to keep their owners stuck firmly at morose end of the perkiness spectrum, and we feed them pills and give them books to read. Others, less decisively, bounce between the two, resulting in what might still be called bipolar persons, and whom we also, allegedly, care for. It takes no great insight (except, possibly, for a trained psychologist) to realise that those stuck at the irrepressibly cheerful end are just as afflicted. But, because their misplaced altruistic urges save the rest of us a bit of bother, we've never thought it worth attempting to find a cure. In short, we're perfectly content to exploit the happy, whether they like it or not.

Even those with no psychological training are aware of this, even if only at second-hand. There's a reason why the predominant motif of culture, both popular and otherwise, and arguably the most irredeemably common, is the pestilence known as love, and it's not just because psychiatrists and biochemists have long delighted in seeking out the lovestruck and putting their heads in clamps. A short poem by Housman puts it more neatly than I could, concisely illustrating the effects on others of the imbalances that occur in the euphoric phase, effects that will be familiar to anyone who's been subject to the soupy effluence of a sufferer. But even Housman tiptoes tastefully round the inevitable backlash; the crashing, and equally irritating, misery that's the result of a bubbling excess of romantic gloop suddenly and speedily meeting with the unrequited concrete of remorseless reality.

This is, in some sense, a good thing. Once we can openly acknowledge that "happy, positive people" are just as screwed up as the rest of us, and even more exploited, we can hope to come to terms with our own mediocre positions on the despondency charts and stop wasting our days skimming "Think Yourself Less Glum". For most of us, it is not the pursuit of happiness that keeps us awake at night, but the fear of it getting away. Realising that happiness won't make us any happier is surely the first step in conquering that fear and getting what we really want, which is, or should be, peace.

[????]

So to summarise, absolutely everyone has to pull themselves together

[Burbage]

???? Wrote:

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> So to summarise, absolutely everyone has to pull

> themselves together

Not exactly, there being no together to pull to, and it not being a matter of choice. But, other than that, a fair enough summary.