Personality Part VIII

Perceptiveness - Introduction:
How well do you see? Not with your eyes but with your instincts. Do you read people like an open book or is it easy to slide something past you as if your inner vision blinked? Some of us misread other people's intentions while others of us get it right away; some of us consistently misjudge situations while others of us seem to know what's happening even if it isn't obvious. How well do you see? The following paragraphs describe your Perceptiveness.

Perceptiveness: Your Personalized Description
When P. T. Barnum said, "You can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time" he didn't take you into account. You are nearly impossible to fool. You quickly pick up the difference between someone selling an honest product and a peddler hawking the current rendition of snake oil. You aren't fooled by some photo opportunity posing as an important moment or your partner's subtly twisted logic to explain why they arrived late to the restaurant or the credit-card bill didn't get paid. Barnum didn't get it; you are nobody's fool.

Your quick mind and keen eye serve not only to protect you from cheats and swindlers but also help you to make the best of constructive moments. In a conversation with someone you care about you pick up the details as well as the main themes; you catch the whole range of what they're trying to tell you and they come away with the gratification of having been truly heard. In the complex environment of your work circumstances you can juggle lots of information about a variety of projects and keep all the balls in play. Because you pay such close attention seldom do you drop an important bit of what's going on. Even out among 'em in the public sphere you seem to catch not only the obvious meaning of events but also the nuances, those subtle shades of true and false that help you make good judgments and keep the public snake-oil peddlers from slipping one by you.

Not very often, but once in a while you'll get fooled. Maybe you weren't paying attention or you didn't think it was a moment of enough importance to keep your mind's eye open; nevertheless you wound up with your pants around your ankles or some elixir in your glass that wasn't as advertised. Learn from it. Even the most benign circumstances deserve your best attention so you can be of use to whomever you are attending to and so you can deny the next Barnum the satisfaction of fooling even almost-never-fooled you.


This is Part VIII of a series. Part I is here and look for Part IX and beyond tomorrow.

Comments are welcome- especially from those who know me IRL.