27th February 2002 10-30 CET
Self knowing
Quote:
"If you do not want what I want
please try not to tell me that my want is wrong.
Or if my beliefs are different than yours,
at least pause before you set out to correct them.
Or if my emotion seems less or more intense
than yours,
given the same circumstances,
try not to ask me to feel other than I do.
Or if I act, or fail to act,
in the manner of your design for action,
please let me be.
I do not, for the moment at least,
ask you to understand me.
That will come only when you are willing to
give up trying to change me into a copy of you.
If you will allow me any of me own wants,
emotions or beliefs, or actions,
then you open yourself up to the possibility
that some day these ways of mine might not
seem so wrong,
and might finally appear as right -
for me.
To put up with me is the first step
to understanding me.
Not that you embrace my ways as right for you,
but that you are no longer irritated
or disappointed with me for my seeming waywardness.
And one day, perhaps, in trying to understand me,
you might come to prize my differences,
and,
far from seeking to change me, might preserve
and even cherish those differences.

I may be your spouse, your parent, your offspring,
your friend, your colleague.
But whatever our relation, this I know;
You and I are fundamentally different
and both of us
have to march to our own drummer."

Rerpinted with the kind permission of
Professor David Keirsey:
"Please Understand Me II"
Published by Prometheus Nemesis Book Co.
ISBN 1-885705-02-6

The Keirsey Temperament Sorter test
can be found at:
www.keirsey.com

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