trying to hold on

I'm trying to hold on,
just waiting to hear your voice.
One word,
just a word will do to end this nightmare


Simba - Lion King




Bintaro, 4.20 am

the day of sighing

They said the things you do while procrastinating, are probably the things you're supposed to do for the rest of your life.




This is absolutely the day of sighing for me.


My chest felt so heavy and I'm feeling like I could break at anytime and cry myself out. I couldn't get rid of that certain thought no matter how deep I drown myself into the works I'm doing. Every now and then the feeling gets too heavy and I'd usually sigh, sometimes unconsciously, sometimes in purpose, to ease my breath a little. I don't really know what it does to my chest, but sighing actually helps it felt a bit lighter, for a brief short moment, before the heavy feeling came back and clench my chest again.


I couldn't stop sighing today. 


I know how annoying it may sound, especially to people in this cubicle, and I really wish I could do something else. Though I always think of sighing as one of the mechanisms to release the negative energy within you, I also believe that to some extent, it affects people around you. The negative energy I release by sighing, transferred to other people nearby. 


I tried to write.
Nothing really came out anyway. Nothing except for these nonsense blabbers.


....


Never before I feel such a feeling that makes me want to exercise like crazy. Maybe I should find some jog tracks or running track somewhere and run and run, run like crazy until I run out of breath. 


I stopped sighing by the time I finished writing this.
I just took a deep sigh, inhaling breath as deep and as much as I can, and exhaling it through my mouth. It helps. And it's soundless. Much safer for everyone.

......*




*that should be read as another blank state of mind*

It's when things seem worst that you must not quit

The first time I read it was in my university's agenda about ten years ago.


I didn't know who wrote this but these are the words that has helped me going through my tough times years ago, back when I was just graduated from college.


I've lost the agenda a year after that, but I never forget the words.


Yesterday, I found them again here and I thought I'd just share it in my blog.


They never fail to boost my spirit, especially the last two lines.
So here goes.


When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
When the road you're trudging seems all uphill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit-
Rest if you must, but don't you quit.


Life is queer with its twists and turns,
As every one of us sometimes learns,
And many a fellow turns about
When he might have won had he stuck it out.


Don't give up though the pace seems slow -
You may succeed with another blow.
Often the goal is nearer than
It seems to a faint and faltering man;
Often the struggler has given up
When he might have captured the victor's cup;
And he learned too late when the night came down,
How close he was to the golden crown.


Success is failure turned inside out -
The silver tint in the clouds of doubt,
And you never can tell how close you are,
It might be near when it seems afar;
So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit -
It's when things seem worst that you must not quit.


Blok M, 9.17 am, a restless mind

write my fear out

They said, write even if you don't feel like it. Write when you don't feel like it. Write what you feared the most.


So here I am, at the office, during lunch break, trying to face this demon that's been nagging me for the past week.


I love to write. I love to talk about things to myself and to the blank white pages in front of me, waiting there silently, unpretentious, yet demanding. I love how my brain seems to race with my fingers, digging deeper into the secluded corners of my heart, typing it all out and feeling the indescribable relief with every word that appears one by one on the screen. 


Yet writing is always hard for me.
The process of finding and digging into the secluded corner of the heart is painful. Gut wrenching, and sometimes, embarrassing. 


It's always hard to face and acknowledge your own anxiety, let alone to put in on paper. Inside the dark corners of your heart, they are all just feelings. And most of the time we see feelings as something that are not real. They're just, feelings. So it would be better to keep them in that dark corners. 


But once they're put on the paper, they become real. They become alive, because you acknowledge them, you recognize them, you admit that they're there. They are alive and breath out of your honesty. 


And, believe it or not, I find it scary. 


I think this is what makes writing is so hard for me.


It is scary to see how real and alive your feelings are. 


I can always write some other things. Things that will not become alive and point their fingers at me once they're on paper. Things that will only leave my brain and sit with their back on my face once they're on the paper. Things I wouldn't care so much, and wouldn't care so much about me either. Some other things, some other truths.


But they said you have to write what you feared the most. Otherwise you're not being honest.


Looking back, I realized that things I feared the most, are the things that are my truth. My true thoughts and feelings, that I'd never even had the courage to share even with myself. I wrote such things, and I remember that once I let those things out on paper, I feel relieved, yet so drained and embarrassed. A fear would grow, pounding in my chest shouting questions like could it be true? could it be right? what was going on all this time? what would you do?


It's painful. But I never give up on me. I dig deeper, search further, into the darkest corner of my mind and my heart, finding realities in the form of untouched feeling. Realities that are me. 


My latest attempt was two months ago. I started writing something I thought I wouldn't be able to face after it's done. It's something that has been occupying my mind for the past months. It has everything it needs to be impossible and forgotten right there and then for the sake of logic. I've reasoned with myself and failed. And I ended up writing about it. A dream that is too big that it scares me. 


But I wrote it anyway. I've started writing it two months ago and had completed almost 90 pages within a week. But then the more I write it, the more I'm scared. The more I feared of what have been put on paper. The more I feared of the feeling inside me. The more I feared the certainty of how one is never going to know one's self fully for the rest of one's life. What I wrote surprised me. How could it be that the thing you desire the most, scares you the most? I started to back down, and slowed down. But I forced myself to keep writing about it, even though I have to crawl from page to page, word by word.


I'm in pain. But I'm not done yet. Because I just have to write this. I just have to write this. I just have to see them there on papers, all the fears, all the dreams and desires that I'd never have the courage to touch before.


This time, I promise myself to dig even deeper. I'll write what I fear most out of the scariest feeling I have lurking inside of me. I'll call all the demons to come out and face me. I'll wake all the silent dreams to wake and stand on their feet and face me. I'll shake all the sadness and disappointment to come down and crashed themselves on the ground, die, or face me. I'll squeeze my heart until it can no longer bleed.


I'll keep on writing this thing I feared the most for the sake of being honest to myself. 


Something I haven't done for quite a long time.


Wish me the best of luck.




South Jakarta, 1.58 pm
Feeling the tight pressure on my chest

Wounded Soul Knows No Colors

‎"Our history is made of pain and never ending struggle. 
So no, we don't know how to draw a rainbow. Wounded soul knows no colors."

I was browsing through my Facebook newsfeed stream the other day, when accidentally casting a glance to the right part of the screen. I saw the words and thought, whose words are they? So dark and gloomy. And then I saw the explanation below it; said that on that day one year ago, I posted that words in my status.

At first, I was surprised by how strange and distant the words sounded to me, even if it's only one year ago. Then within seconds everything came back to me, the memories, the feeling, the pain. They seemed to be familiar now. 

I wrote the words for someone who has gone through tough times, together with me. I wrote the words in my status box  because I wanted to tell her that it's okay if we're being misunderstood. It's okay if the clouds we're carrying above our head confuse people around us, as much as they confuse us. That's just how it is supposed to be. That's just how we are supposed to be in such times. Misunderstood. 

I wrote the words because I wanted to tell her that I am the one who understands the trouble and the pain she has gone through, as much as she understands mine. I am the one who understands the wound that carved deep within her heart through all the years, as much as she understands mine. I am the one who understands the reasons behind the grey clouds hovering on her life, as much as she understands mine. 

I wanted to tell her that no one, no one else, will be able to understand what we've gone through and that's just the way it is. I wanted to tell her to accept that and live with it, with an open heart. Misunderstood and wounded as we are. The sky is grey now. So we might as well sit and appreciate it rather than desperately paint a broken rainbow. 

But I never told her. All the things I wanted to say. I never told her that. I just didn't have the courage to do so. The wound that we have, it's not something we easily discuss openly, without having to feel how mess our lives are. I think we've been pretending that we're over and done with it. That what happened in the past remained in the past. That we are not carrying our anger within our hearts, walking like a zombie throughout our lives afterwards. We're keeping the wound, rotten in our hearts, thinking that moving ahead and never look back will help us heal. 

I know we never really are.

I posted the words in my status box that day with a hope that she'd read it (she'd read it I'm sure) and understand the meaning behind the words. I could never tell her. 

Honestly, I don't know whether I need to thank Facebook for reminding me about those words. It brought unpleasant memories. But the strange and distant feeling I got when I read it again for the first time after a year, is a sign that I've changed. Right now, I couldn't picture myself posting such words again in my status box. 

I hate to say that I don't know what happen. And to say that I'm much more positive about my life now is probably a bit of an overstatement. Or perhaps I'm just scared that things will start taking the difficult turn again. That's that. I don't know. 

One thing I know is I've learned that embracing the darkness has helped me to get through most of the tough times. I never tried to paint that broken rainbow people had been suggesting me to do all the while back then. I walked with my grey clouds, with the thought that one day when it's time for them to go, I'd be able to sincerely thank them for spending the time with me. And I know I'm preparing for a goodbye to my grey clouds now. I can feel it. 

Bintaro, 10.15 pm

I know she's not okay right now. I wrote this for her, and I'm pretty sure she won't read it. Just like many other things I couldn't tell her back then, this, I can't tell her too.

It finally rained

It finally rained.


It should heals everything.
Wash away the tears and worries.


Please.




Bintaro, 9.20 pm

My Pinterest

I am now officially a Pinterester :)

Keep calm and pin. 
Indeed, pinning does calm you.

don't fall in love with me

Suddenly

I remember what you once said to me

"Don't fall in love with me"

I completely understand now. Yet I love you still anyway.

12.42 pm, during lunch break

suffocated

In the middle of developing a slide, which supposed to be an extract of pages of pages of interview notes. 

Such a paradox.

Developing something by squeezing something.

I'm talking nonsense again.

I'm feeling this gut-wrenching emotions again.

Overwhelmed and suffocated.

Yet I type, and talk, and smile, and laugh, and respond to the world.

Normally.

Normal is overrated.

I'm saying it again.

Normal is overrated for its tendency to rip your heart while struggling for normality in the middle of this overwhelming situation

Normal is overrated for its ability to shut you up and plaster a mask on your face while you're actually yearning to scream and shout and cry your heart out and crawl on the ground and sob and suffocate yourself to be able to free yourself from this overwhelming emotion.

Normal. I just can't be. Not now.

I need to cry. Curl myself on the bed under the blanket and cry. And cry. And cry.

Yet I respond to the world. Normally.

5.04 pm, during office hours, because I couldn't stand it anyomore.

Pinterest and Dreaming

Tumblr is my quiet corner when I need to escape the noise in Twitter and Facebook. And I've been spending more and more time there compared to the other two. It feels quiet there, and even if there are a lot of people in your timeline, it doesn't feel noisy. Nobody seems to bother of what everyone else is doing. When they do, they like, or reblog. Sometimes they ask questions. Yet it doesn't feel bothersome at all.
People are talking in hushed voice there.


And then I found Pinterest.







It feels even more quieter than Tumblr. And I love it.
I haven't dig more but I guess you need to be invited to be able to create an account there. So I guess for now I'd just looking around and enjoy the beautiful things there. 


This one is my favorite, a collection of dreamy bedrooms. 





I have always been having this special interest towards bedrooms interior, ever since I was a little girl. My sister told me that it was because I'm such a sleepy head, and she's probably right. 


But I think it's also because bedroom is something very personal to me, so much that even when my Mom spends more than an hour in my bedroom just to talk to me, I'd actually feel invaded.


And there's something so romantic about comfy bedroom, with clean white sheets and long window looking out to the garden.... I nearly cried while browsing through all the pictures there... 


Uhm, well, okay, perhaps I'm exaggerating. 


Point is, I love Pinterest, and I thank God for whoever posting the pictures of dreamy bedrooms there, because I love bedrooms.

Pinterest is now officially my quietest corner to go to when I need to be alone and dreaming :)




8.15 pm, as usual, it's me, motivated for all the wrong reasons

On the Noise in Social Media

A lot of people say the Internet is a godsend for introverts and I think I have to say that I share similar opinion. What's interesting was, I had always thought that since the Internet allows us introverts to talk easier and considerably a lot more than what we usually do in person, that makes introverts become extroverts when online.

But I found out that that's not the case.

I read an interesting article from Psychology Today about introverts online. This is what the writer (who is an introvert) said: 

I blog, I tweet, I FB. I'm all over the place. But like in the offline world, I have my limits. 

By the end of a workday, FB voices start giving me the same kind of tiredhead I get at a party or after a stretch of face-to-face social engagements. Sometimes I find myself getting annoyed when people comment on my status lines, which is silly. If you're going to be an exhibitionist, you have to expect people to look.

An introvert offline is an introvert online. I don't accept friend requests from everyone on FB (so please don't friend me--though feel free to join me onTwitter ). I take a while to warm to new virtual friends. I hide people who bore me. Sometimes I want Twitter to just shut the hell up. And I prefer not to post on my blogs unless I have something to say. 

So, introvert offline, is introvert online. Nothing changes.

And that is pretty much what I'm feeling right now about the social media out there.

I'm never really into Facebook. I find it too crowded.  I mostly use it only to keep in touch with my close friends. Only close friends, yet, of course, it fails successfully. There are times I kind of lose myself and start typing anything I want to there, mostly unimportant things, and at the end of the day I mentally knock myself on the head, or simply wonder, what would be the best way to make use of this thing because what you've been doing is anything but useful, Self. I'm learning and will keep on learning for this one. 

Twitter, is another story. I rarely check my Twitter these days. For the past month, I only check my Twitter twice a week, and even that felt too much. I couldn't stay there for longer than 15 minutes, before the noise starts getting in to my nerve and I have this urge to immediately shut it down and runaway.

It's still addictive as usual. If I force myself to stay another click, most likely I'd stay there for another 15 - 20 minutes. There's always something interesting to see, inviting links to click, or simply curiosity over not-so-important-but-curiosity-is-curiosity things. 

I don't want to abandon Twitter because I realize that it's still an important source of information. I just need to find the way how to keep up with the (sometimes annoying) noise. 

What I did was I re-activate my Google Reader. It has been neglected for a couple of months because it's too crowded but I managed to trimmed it down to only subscription of blogs. No more news portals. I keep up with the latest news by following the news portals' on twitter, all grouped in my News column in TweetDeck.

In this case, TweetDeck is a lot of help. Whenever I feel I need to check on the news (or something else like the National Geography or Discovery Channel which I put in the "Interesting Stuff" column__yeah I know the name is far from creative), I can directly focus my attention to the relevant column. I don't have to be distracted by the noise in the timeline.

And honestly speaking, I rarely check my timeline lately. Well, there will always be interesting stuffs and information there but sometimes it's just too noisy, and really, most of the times, the information is not that important.  There is also the option of cleaning up my following list, which I've been planning to do actually. But it will take a certain amount of time and energy. Thinking of drowning into that noisy stream again alone has drained me. So in the mean time, I guess this would be the best way. 


Twitter for news updates, and Google Reader for my light readings.


And I'm a happy introvert :)




-7.20 pm, while trying to write something else, and as usual, I came up with something else-

An Introvert's Lexicon

The following is meant to be a humorous look at the world from an Introvert's point of view.

Click here for the complete explanation 

WORD	Extrovert's Definition	Introvert's Definition
Alone, adj.	Lonely.	Enjoying some peace and quiet.
Book, n.	1) Doorstop. 2) Paperweight.	1) Source of comfort. 2) Safe and inexpensive method of traveling, having adventures, and meeting interesting people.
Bored, adj.	Not frantically busy.	Stuck making small talk, and unable to escape politely.
Extrovert, n.	A nice, normal, sociable person. Never surprises you with anything weird.	A boisterous person who may be very nice, but who is somewhat exhausting to spend time with. Usually not too deep, but fun.
Free time, n.	A time when you do group activities. (See Introvert's Definition of work.)	A time when you read without interruption until you're in danger of going blind.
Friend, n.	Someone who makes sure that you're never alone.	Someone who understands that you're not rejecting them when you need to be alone.
Good manners, n.	Making sure people aren't left all by themselves. Filling in any silences in a conversation.	Not bothering people, unless it's necessary, or they approach you. (Sometimes you can bother people you know well, but make sure they aren't busy first.)
Home, n.	A place to invite everybody you know.	A place to hide from everybody you know.
Internet, n.	1) Another medium for advertising. 2) A place where geeks with no life hang out.	A way to meet other introverts. You don't have to go out, and writing allows you to think before just blurting something out.
Introvert, n.	One of those who like to read. Moody loners. Be careful not to tick them off; some of them are serial killers.	One who shows a perfectly natural restraint and caution when meeting new people. One who appreciates solitude. Often, one who enjoys reading and has a philosophical turn of mind.
Love, n.	Never having to do anything alone.	Being understood and appreciated.
Music, n.	Background noise.	Something with a tune and lyrics which may be moving and intelligent, or may be drivel.
Phone, n.	Lifeline to other people - your reason for living.	Necessary (?) evil, and yet another interruption. Occasionally useful, but mostly a nuisance.
Reading, v.	A chore that a teacher makes you do when you're a kid.	You have to do it in secret and pretend you don't really do it, or people think you're strange.
Shell, n.	Something you find on the beach.	What people relentlessly nag you to come out of. Why do you have to leave it, if you're happy there?
To go out, v.	Requires at least two people, and the more the better. Constant chatter, loud music, sports, crowds, and food consumption are all fun components of going out.	Can be done alone or with others. Enjoyable if there's some point to it; i.e., in order to see a band, a movie, a play, or perhaps to have a stimulating discussion with one or two close friends.
Work, n.	Having to read, write, listen, or concentrate on anything.	Being pestered every five minutes about something trivial, and not allowed to concentrate.

A Love Not Colonizing (by Farish A.Noor)

This is a very beautiful piece from Farish A Noor. 

A friend posted the link to his facebook page (where this piece was originally posted) one day in Twitter. I don't know what happened afterwards but a few hours later when I tried to access the page through the link for the second time that day, it's no longer there.

Maybe there was a sudden rush of visitors to the page and perhaps he wasn't comfortable with it. 

I'm really glad to be able to find the complete version.

I own nothing of this piece and I have no intention of whatsoever to claim it as mine by posting it on my blog. If only this has been posted on his page (other than Facebook), I'd put the link to it, but I just haven't found it yet.

I posted it here because it is really a beautiful, thought provoking piece, and I just have to share it to the world.

So here goes.

================================================================

A Love Not Colonizing - Farish A. Noor

The narrative of love is peculiar in its static monotony and the fact that it can nonetheless appeal to the one addressed. Though the same utterances are made time and again, and the words have been spoken since time immemorial, three simple words strung together in a sentence stir the emotions of the one to whom they are directed, and even the most rational counsel fails to temper the heart-strings, once pulled. Reason tries in vain to pull back the reins of passion, but the emotions have bolted heavenwards.

Yet the litany of love rings hollow once the magic spell is broken; the hitherto-wondrous Other returns to the realm of the mundane and the ordinary; flight is grounded as angels' wings are clipped - the one you held resumes a human countenance, riddled with the flaws and failings of the mortal.

Pain arises from the breaking of trust; the betrayal of innocence. Her touch is poisonous, venomous. The Self recoils in horror, the horror of knowing.

Can there be a love not colonising?

A love not grasping, beholding, robbing and stealing? A love that does not invade that sacred space of one's self-knowing, the secret garden we all have and are entitled to have, the garden of nostaligic longings and regret, pain passed, hopes dashed, lost smiling memories, quiet moments of solitude and lonely walks down the pathways of memory and reflection.

Chauduri's thoughts on the four windows of the soul come to mind: No matter how open we are, we all have - and must have - a private space, a secret garden, to call our own.

And no matter how closed we might be, we all can - and must - have that capacity to open up to the Other when the situation arises.

Yet this tension between opening and closing, between sharing and privacy, is a secret tension we all bear upon ourselves. It is our lot, as sentient beings who love and can love and wish to love. But it is a sacred tension; a higher, nobler lament, that we must carry knowingly and with respect.

There lies the moral dilemma of love: To love, to want, to wish to possess; and yet to restrain ourselves from that maddening, insane, irrational temptation to possess the Other entirely. Like some childlike infantile longing to grasp with clammy hands the Other and in that suffocating embrace arrest the Other for eternity, to freeze the Other in the gaze of the lover and to render immobile, arrested, policed, the object of love as an object possessed; though in this case it is the lover who is possessed.

How many times have I suffered this tiresomely repetitive episode; like some tawdry soap opera that is repeated ad infinitum for want of anything else to entertain. The same sad, pathetic, sickening spectacle of the Other, clumsy in love, stupid in jealousy, childish in conceit, irrational in faith, intolerant and oppressive in longing: The Other who enters your space, is welcomed into the privacy of one's most intimate and innermost confession, only to see the colonising tentacles of possessiveness uncoil and reach out, grasping, touching, moving and removing all those things that are so dear to me.

'I only want you for myself'; 'I want to love you for myself', 'I only want to start a new life with you', 'I only want you to forget your past', and so on, and so forth: the plaintive cries of the other are so, so, tiring and predictable; they no longer move, they no longer affect.

How odd, and sad, that the one who professes love is often the one who doesn’t understand what it is, and what it entails.

To talk of love and loving is glib and facile; living with the attendant responsibilities of respect and ethics is something else entirely. The former is the aspiration, the latter the deed.

How many times have I witnessed this sad pantomine of misguided emotions let loose? How many times have my space been invaded, my possessions divested, my memories trampled upon and forced to retreat before the advance of the one who professes love but who only imposes?

How many times have I returned only to find that one other memory of mine has been robbed from me; one more photograph displaced, one more letter torn or burnt, one more note effaced. How many times have my space been invaded by the intrusive claws of this thing they call Love.

Our pain and our past make us who and what we are. There are those who try to forget, but some of us try to reconcile and re-member the broken body of our shattered history as best we can; and to live and live on, as scarred bodies that carry the shards and fragments of our broken pasts embedded in our selves.

My pains and my memories are mine, and nobody has the right to rob me of them. To love, and to utter those fateful words that profess that love, is never easy: One loves only when one can accept the other in the Other's totality, warts and all, flaws notwithstanding. Yet how many times have I been proven wrong, and how many times have my judgment faltered. Every outward gesture, every invitation, has instead been met with intrusion, invasion, violation of my private space, my Self.

Oh, for a love not colonising. For a love that is born out of acceptance and not wanting, not possessing, not clasping, not suffocating.

For a love that can sit by your side on the park bench, quietly smiling, watching from close yet afar, with wonderment and tenderness.

For a love that sees with eyes that do not spy; hands that touch but never clutch.

A love content, quiet, still in its constancy and that says to itself: "Here beside me is the man I love, in a world entirely his own, vast, expansive, rich".

How far am I from that happy land; and for now all I am left with are my memories that echo like footsteps in the dark.

Yet rather that than possession; may nothing and no-one ever own me.

================================================================

Google Gravity

So this is Google Gravity.


My team mate Kate told me about it on one, boring afternoon at the office, two days before the long Idul Fitri holiday (yes, just imagine how boring it would be).


The sight of the falling and bouncing black blocks (from the menu bar) made us jumping on our seat (yes, probably because we were THAT bored). It's really fun to play with. But I don't think it works on IE though, because one of my colleague who heard the commotion in our cubicle (me and Kate bouncing in our chair) tried it on her computer and nothing happened. The Google black bar stays where they are, on the top of the screen.


Of course, as usual, typing your own name in the search box would be the first key word to try :D


We had fun alrite. And I'm really glad to have Kate as a team mate, since there's hardly a soul in my cubicle that understands my excitement on such things.

Personality Pattern

Took another test here

And this is the result.

Cooperative

You enjoy teamwork, play well with others, and prefer getting along to winning.

You're not compelled to win every contest nor to be right all the time.

Passionate

You are in touch with your emotions, and sometimes you react before you think. The good news: you don't tamp down your feelings. The bad news: you sometimes say or do things that you later wish you could take back.

You do not live your life on an even keel; you do not go for long periods without experiencing some mood swings.

Introspective

You like your own company; you're a very interesting person. Tracking your own mental processes, knowing what you're thinking and why you do what you do, is important to you. Often, what's going on in your mind is more compelling than what's going on outside. For the most part, those with a high score on the "introspective" trait enjoy reading, taking long walks, learning new things, and other solitary activities.

You are not someone who is constantly looking to be among a group of friends; you never feel bored when you are by yourself.

Aesthetic

You appreciate art, beauty, and design; you know that they are not superficial but absolutely crucial to living the good life. You have good taste, and you're proud of it. Those with a high score on the "aesthetic" trait are often employed in literary or artistic professions, enjoy domestic activities — doing things around the house — and are enthusiastic about the arts, reading, and travel.

You don't think it's pretentious to be moved by art and beauty. You're not one of those who believe it doesn't matter what something looks like as long as it does its job.

Sympathetic

You have a knack for knowing what's going on in the hearts and minds of those around you, without their having to tell you explicitly. People tend to turn to you with their problems because they know you care, and that you will likely offer good advice and a helping hand.

You do not feel that people with sad stories are just looking for attention, or have brought their problems upon themselves.

Reserved

You are somewhat shy, or at least unwilling to spend all your time socializing. With you it's true that "still waters run deep," which is why many of your acquaintances never get to know you well.

You are not always ready to talk at the drop of a hat. Whether you're in the office or at a party, you're not likely to be found gabbing away in the middle of a group of people.

Solitary

You are a private person, not very comfortable in a big group, and view excessive socializing as a waste of time.

You not prefer hanging out with others to spending time alone; you do not tend to feel at home in a crowded room, club, stadium, or auditorium.

Acquiescent

You are comfortable in your own skin and don't need to throw your weight around. You'll often choose to be the one who is told what to do rather than the one who's doing the telling, and you sometimes avoid confrontations even if it means that you won't get your way.

You aren't interested in making others bend to your will or in always dishing out criticism. You're not a pushy person, and you like it that way.

Understanding

You are willing to take the time to find out what's going on with other people, especially if they're in distress. You're a good listener, you don't criticize, and you offer unbiased, respectful, honest advice when it's requested. With a high score on the "understanding" trait, it is likely that you are enthusiastic about charitable work, helping others, and making the world a better place.

You don't feel the need to impose your standards on others or say things that, even though true, cause pain.

Scrupulous

You are an honest, fair person. You don't lie or cheat to get ahead. You treat others with respect and hope for the same in return.

You do not feel that you are above the rules that everyone else follows; you are definitely not willing to do whatever it takes to get ahead.