If you were to wake me up and ask what my best book is, I’d say The Spirit-Controlled Temperament. It’s a life-changing book by Tim LaHaye.
Wait o. All I’m doing here is sharing a bit of my journey of self discovery. 🙄 Don’t go and be looking for “So… what’s the moral of the story?”
Ok. So, what makes this book so fascinating? It helped me understand why I can come across as a grouch and sometimes embody a resentful, hard-driving, in short, Curtis Payne from House of Payne. It also made sense of why an unemotional and largely insensitive Curtis Payne can express so much concern for his loved ones, and be so concerned with social issues and others’ welfare.
I don’t know if you like learning about yourself, but I do. Because even I surprise myself, at times.
So, let’s dig in. 😁
Like I’ve said in one of my previous posts, I’m a choleric-melancholic, by nature. I’ll first break down the blend so you can understand why an undiluted combination of both can be lethal.
Choleric
Oh, this is only in relation to me – for obvious reasons aka it’s my blog and I’m obviously using myself as a case study 🙄. I definitely won’t be telling you all my choleric and melancholy traits; just the ones that I find striking. 🙃
Ok. Stereotypically, a choleric is “hot, quick, active, practical, and strong-willed …. He is often self-sufficient and very independent. He tends to be decisive and opinionated, finding it easy to make decisions for himself as well as for others … By nature Cholerics have a serious emotional deficiency …. Choleric women may cry only when facing the most desperate circumstances.” 👀 (The Spirit-Filled Temperament, Tim LaHaye).
Here’s a screenshot:
🙊🤐
Now, my melancholy side.. 👀
Melancholy
Tim LaHaye says the melancholy “… is perhaps the most dependable of all the temperaments, for his perfectionist tendencies do not permit him to be a shirker .…” In short, let me add a screenshot.
I’m not even going to bother to gloat 😏.
Now, over to two key weaknesses 😩: “No one is more critical than the Melancholy. With unrealistic expectations of others, they cannot happily accept less than the very best.”
The Blend – ChlorMel
For those who don’t know, a temperament blend is the combination of an individual’s two temperaments; primary and secondary.
Hmmm.. The blend of my primary (choleric ) and my secondary (melancholy) is hypothetically the blackest sheep of the temperament blends. The “😧👎🏾”seem to be more than the “😀👍🏾” for the ChlorMels 😩. ChlorMels who are as natural and raw as them come… let me just grab one or more screenshots 🙈. #WeThankGodForTheHolySpirit!
I’m not apt to be a dictator 🙄. Hate? I don’t know about that 😕. Love? 🤷🏾😂 Oh, please! Yes, of course! 😁
👀🙈 Too. True.!
You see? It’s not all bad 😏. Tim actually says our strengths and weaknesses are kind of balanced on the scale… I don’t know how accurate that is 👀.
Left to me, I would be unbothered about improving some of those weaknesses because they’re just mentally convenient for me. I would think to myself, Why would they think I’m too fussy? 🙄 Can’t they see that it could be better? On what planet does this arrangement even look attractive? 🙄.
Then there’s the part about speaking my mind, whether or not the other person wants to hear it. I would think sometimes, Why should I have to go through the stress of finding a nicer way to say that this design is ancient and obsolete and a waste of time and resources? Why can’t I just tell him that he looks like a frog when he smiles? 🙄
🙈🙈
What Next?
See, the way this book is written, the strengths are discussed before the weaknesses. I like to have my bad news/ reports first, then the good ones. But the book makes it clear that those weaknesses are part of our being; they don’t make us less human.
I’ve learned to embrace my strengths and deal with my weaknesses 😏. The key to overcoming weaknesses is to first identify and acknowledge their existence, then find effective ways of doing something about them. They can be worked upon. I don’t know who you go to for help with things that are possibly beyond you, but I go to God. And so does Tim.
The most fantastic feature about this book for me is that it gives me an insight into why and how I can retune my weaknesses into strengths with the help of the Holy Spirit. In all my years of ignorantly being indifferent about my choleric emotional deficiency, I would occasionally feel the need to find a solution. I didn’t find any. My complete solution isn’t here yet, though. And I don’t know if it will ever be complete. But I’m learning to tone down the self-sufficiency (Zechariah 4:6) and look to God to help me practise 1 Cor. 13 and Gal. 5:22-24 effectively 😌.
I mean, it’s amazing that as a naturally hostile and resentful choleric, I’m incapable of holding a grudge or treating people accordingly, based on the wrongs I know they’ve done. Once a few hours have gone by, I find it impossible to program my attitude towards them to match their offence.
Like I said though, I’m still in the testing stages; part of my revisions are to temper my melancholy “realism” with optimism so I don’t emote pessimism. More so, I’ve come to appreciate the relationships I have – oh, wait! I’m not laying down my life for any friend, as it says about melancholies in the screenshot up there 😐. As much as I have bitter complaints about life, I have no interest in sleeping in a coffin any time soon. Even my best friends already know that I love them 😂.
Furthermore, learning to hold those choleric comments in is also a thing because, as a matter of fact, I don’t want someone else to say to me the things I sometimes say to others in my mind – except there’s an existent mutual agreement on 100% undiluted honesty (my way). I know words can be very hurtful so I try to isolate myself and keep quiet when I know my sarcasm or “razor-sharp, active tongue” – as Tim puts is – is about to go into overdrive.
Life is interesting, though. What is stereotypically termed as your own temperament weakness may be a strength to someone else, and could cause them to appreciate that attribute in you, especially when you manifest it. One man’s meat is another man’s poison 😏. I’m not talking about a sarcastic or caustic tongue 🙄.
Anyhoo, I’m still a work in progress 😌. Got a long way to go with *some* missing fruits of the Spirit 😩. But God is faithful 😅.
Until you see me again, ✌🏾 I ♥️ you! Or do I? 🤔🙄
The Manny Tab 