Positivity

I want to tell you about another one of my Top 5 personality traits. (If you missed the last one and care to read about it, you can find that post here.) When this attribute came out in my Top 5, everyone laughed, including me. No one thought they could see it, including me. It was positivity. In talking to my boss after my test, he determined that it must not mean what everyone thinks it means. That there must be a deeper meaning. On the surface everyone thinks it means I always look for the positives in every single situation. They see that attribute as a Polly.anna.

The definition of this attribute is:

You are generous with praise, quick to smile, and always on the lookout for the positive in the situation. Some call you lighthearted. Others just wish their glass were as full as your seems to be. But either way, people want to be around you. Their world looks better around you because your enthusiasm is contagious. Lacking your energy and optimism, some find their world drab with repetition or, worse, heavy with pressure. You seem to find a way to lighten their spirit. You inject drama into every project. You celebrate every achievement. You find ways to make everything more exciting and more vital. Some cynics may reject your energy, but you are rarely dragged down. Your positivity won't allow it. Somehow you can't quite escape your conviction that it is good to be alive, that work can be fun, and that no matter what the setbacks, one must never lose one's sense of humor.

Two years ago, that WAS hard to see in me because I was still batteling infertility. But today, that is me to a T. I don't think people would laugh about my having that trait in my Top 5 these days. The deeper meaning also came to light a few months ago when I started going to the Shrink. During one of our sessions she kept likening my past experiences to a Phoenix rising from the ashes. Apparently the post where I talked about that has gone to the Blog Post Graveyard because I talked about my old friend in it, but that session was a breakthrough day for me. In fact, after I got back to work that afternoon, I marched straight into my boss's office and told him I have figured out how Positivity made it into my Top 5. He smiled really big and said I was right.

I am so glad that my PPD lead me down the path it did, because if it hadn't, I wouldn't be where I am today. I wouldn't be able to look at this trait and see it as true. I am grateful for the battle I fought to get here. There is a good in everything, sometimes we just have to look harder to see it.

Now stay tuned for the post in which my Developer and Positivity turn around and bite me in the @$$.