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Great comment. I remember someone I knew, saying “I can’t tell if it’s an asset or a defect! If I’m stubborn, it’s a defect, but if I’m tenacious, it’s an asset.” > That's no indictment of contentment, maybe changing the world is overrrated. I think a significant number of “world-changers” have not had personal happy endings. They may have done a lot of good, but it didn’t do much for their own personal happiness. I tend to be “tenacious,” but I also like to do really high-Quality work, so it may look like “stubbornness,” to a lot of folks. For example, I have spent the entire day, today, tweaking haptics and voiceover text in the app I’m developing. I became aware of a very small, rare, cosmetic bug, that most folks would shrug off, but it really bothers me, and I’m going to make sure it gets fixed, tomorrow. |
I've had very similar conversations with my therapist many times. The conclusion I've come to is that almost every personality trait has both adaptive and maladaptive aspects. You can try to maximize the former and avoid the latter, but ultimately any personality superpower you have is going to bring some consequences along with it.
I try to be more accepting of the fact that most of the psychological stuff is comes from one side coins where the other sides are often my most valuable attributes.