The degree to which we understand the world depends on the amount we understand people. The world is a complex place, but mostly, people are the most complex of all. There’s a whole field of study devoted to the various drivers and personality traits of people. It’s called psychology. For us to understand the world, it’s important that we understand people.
I would admit that I’m an observer of people, sometimes at a distance, but an observer none the less. I like to find out why people do certain things that thy do, or what motivates them, or why they think the way they do. I have to say, at the end of my examination from afar, I’m sometimes left at a loss. Some peoples are real head-scratchers. They’re tough ones to figure out. We try to understand people the best we can. Mostly, we try to understand people by relating them to ourselves. We use ourselves as the standard by which we try to understand others. And that’s often where we run into confusion. Each of us has a different understanding of things, and different motivators, and different qualities that would skew our perception, or understanding of others. And some people we can never understand, but we can only properly define them. While we can never understand why they are what they are, we can still understand what they are. Truly humble people cannot understand an egomaniac, a contrite person cannot understand a liar, and a servant can’t understand a narcissist. But each person can learn to spot these when they see them.
But what’s also interesting is that many times we don’t even understand ourselves. That’s why we end up going to a counselor—for the purposes of some kind of self-discovery. Sometimes we need to talk things over with a third party in order to gain some insight into ourselves. Sometimes it’s helpful in order to show us what our true motivations are. But even coming to a full understanding of ourselves, we may still never understand some things about others. That means it’s wise to know what kind of people we’re dealing with without passing judgement on them. It can be a key to a person’s success in life if they can get a good read on other people. We can go through life with somewhat more discretion than Forest Gump, but maybe less discretion than a CIA interrogator. There is a happy medium here. It’s best that I not go into a used car dealership assuming that every car on the lot was driven by a grandma who only drove it to church on Sundays.
It’s admirable to lack understanding of why some people are a certain way, but it’s not admirable to lack understanding that there are people of a certain way. The good news is you don’t have to possess certain characteristics in order to spot them. You can spot them regardless.