As "personality" is the worst mask, then whom can you trust?

Let me start of this way “The worst mask is personality of a person”. Some of you may wonder how dare I am to write such a blunt statement. Please don't fight over it, let me explain my point.


Whenever I hear “He has got a great personalty”, or when someone says “I admire him, because what a charming personality he has got”, I have always felt these people are going in a wrong direction. Why?

Because the greatness of anything cannot be realized by looking its outside appearance. If that hasn’t been the case mankind would have never found diamonds from dark charcoals.

Personality can be referred as someone's trained behavior or an outside appearance. Basically it is the behavioral pattern of an individual with respect to different situations in life. When someone says he has got a great personality that does mean he has got a great skill to sell himself to others. His skills include effective communication skills, great body language, nice smile. He may be even very active in his communities. He may have all the luxury possessions . Having these qualities is a fantastic thing.

But most of the time these trained behaviors and external awesomeness of a person may be a mask to deceive or hide someone's real character. That means you cannot really trust someone by their humble behaviors or by their dress code.

Now you may ask,  “Jerin, then what is it, that makes a person trustworthy and admirable?” the answer is simple but many of us have forgotten this reality. Yes, a better character makes a man perfect.

You may ask “what? character isn’t a part of personality?” Not at all, personality is someone’s external behavior while character is an internal thing or the real existence of a being.

Character is the best trait of a man because outer personality rather the mask would tear down when so called great “personalities” meet some real challenges. You must have seen many well dressed and well behaved persons burst out with anger even for some petty things. At the same time you might have seen people handling the toughest things with genuine smile and humility.

Let me make it more clear by relating the concept with an old story. You must have heard/read the very popular Aesop’s tale of a rabbit and a tortoise running a race. The rabbit thought of taking rest between the race and it failed the competition because the tortoise converted the rabbit's sleeping time to it's winning time. Before the race, spectators gathered in the starting point must have definitely thought rabbit will win the race because they entrusted the “personality” of the rabbit but they never knew that the rabbit was a lazy lad inside.

So the moral of the story with respect to the topic is the character of consistency and integrity wins at the end of the day not the personality and muscle power.

Okay, now that you may want to know how you can find someone with a better character. To find someone with such greatness of character, the only way is assess the person by investing your time for a long period. The best character cannot be defined but only can be felt by someones humbleness or goodness.

On the other hand to find a person with a great personality you may need some seconds of time as it is solely based on what you see outside.

Now the big question, how can I develop a better character?

Personality mask or Personality techniques can be acquired by simply attending a personality or behavioral training program but acquiring a great character needs more effort and time.

“Yes, I know you are ready to invest your time”. “Okay, that is great but you need to understand one more thing!”. It is about the “Character Development Cycle”. Which is a very simple cyclic process behind Character Development.

#1st stage

It starts with a “thought”. If you consume a thought over and over again that very thought will reflect in your behavior.  (Thought --> Behavior)

#2nd stage

If you continue behaving in a certain way over and over again, your behavior becomes your second nature. That means that behavior becomes a part of your habit.  (Behavior --> Habit) 

#3rd & final stage

Then when you keep this habit for quite a long time, the same habit will convert it your character.  (Habit --> Character)

This is the Character Development Cycle; any of your character traits have undergone this process.

If you say “I become angry easily, because it’s my character” that means you had a recurring “thought” of being in a state of anger/agitation/frustration some time ago. Then that thought had become your behavior. After that the same behavior became your habit. Then finally that habit has rooted in your character. That means it all started from a “thought of anger”.

If you want to transform your character, it’s simple, change your thoughts and consume that thought over a period of time. Research says that if you can hold a thought/behavior over a continuous period of #21 days that thought becomes rooted in your sub-conscious mind and in turn becomes your character.

That means noblest of character is neither a special blessing nor a matter of up-bringing. But someone's continues effort to consume good thoughts.

So next time when you “think” something, have a self-analysis, do I want to make this thought a part of my character.

Let us think good, talk good and live good!

[Have you ever had an experience of "personality" mask vs character in your life? Or do you want to add on anything I have missed to address? Jump in and comment in the below section.

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