PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT- A New Perspective

Personal responsibility is the basis of personality development.

It is egocentric to presume heredity to be a contributory factor for

personality development.
It is ethnocentric to presume a specific environment to be a
contributory factor for personality development.
It is eccentric to presume chance or luck to be a contributory factor
for personality development. It is not a trick that one can learn in a
conference or by maintaining indifference. In short it is nothing
extrinsic but intrinsic. Therefore anyone interested in personality
development must give up all sorts of excuses, non-committal
cautiousness and escapism and instead first start looking at oneself.

Personality development, be it in social life or spiritual life is a matter

of inner perception as Albert Camus, the great French writer once
said, “ An intelligent man watches himself”. Personality development
is personal responsibility, a feeling of responsibility to be honest and
trustworthy to oneself and towards others, or at least, feeling
responsible to become honest and trustworthy. Personality is not
meant to be built but it must be in-built; if it is built then it would
stop at a point and remain static like a building. Personality is a
constant process of becoming and being. Who you are, is determined
by what you are becoming and what you become is determined and
what you are now, a sort of obverse. So personality is both being and
becoming honest and responsible. This is possible only when there is
an inextricable bond of well-patterned thoughts and feelings with
concomitant ideas and actions based on lasting values and valuable
purposes.

When this sort of unifying, well-organized pattern of thoughts and

feelings do not exist, then there is every possibility of becoming a split
personality. We do come across many who have such good behavior
and who are so well mannered in society but are highly irritable and
unbearable characters at home in their personal life or vice versa. In
short the best personality is the product of serious perception of the
inner self and the inner perception of life’s seriousness.
Where this inner perception does not exist there are bound to be
conflicts between the actual self and the many desired and dreamed
selves. When one honestly encounters and deals properly with one’s
inner self with all its emotional urges and intellectual desires one can
really develop one’s personality. Ultimately personality development
depends on how one perceives one’s inner self and how one uses one’s
urges.

It is evident that every emotional urge manifests itself in myriads of

ways depending upon the individual’s inner self .For example,
curiosity can bring out an eavesdropper or a scandal monger or a
clandestine voyeur or a gossip giant or a prying bore or a research
scientist or a space explorer or a spiritual meditator or a social
inventor etc; so the emotional urge of curiosity produces both
adorable and deplorable personalities depending upon the personal
responsibility and perception of the individual. No one can escape it.

So never try to evade anything, feel responsible, encounter and by the

way you deal, emerge enlightened.

Personality development is nothing but personal responsibility.

Without personal responsibility even abnormal ability delivers only
subnormal utility.- BALAYOGI