Finding the balance.

What is the one distinctive trait about yourself? It is quite a “dangerous question”, because in reality, it is. How you respond says a lot about you.

The underlying assumption is to find the balance between sincerity and arrogance. Where does modesty start and pride end? Should it be answered in a cynical, self-deprecating manner, exuding false modesty and caustic wit? But what if you have no friends to back it up, or worse, what if you are just being too presumptuous.

Of course, the distinction is a purely personal characteristic, but it is best magnified through people around you. You can always proclaim that you’re generous or kind-hearted, only to be slammed by the entire populace that you are nowhere near. You can be a bitch by other people’s standards, but receive unconditional love from those who matter the most. In a spastic world, everything is best shown by how people respond generally to you, or at least, how you are perceived by the majority.

It only becomes a crucial state when you need to describe yourself, and you are at loss with words. Not because you can’t describe yourself, but you simply do not want to be too arrogant in doing so. Some people though argue that too much humility can be considered as false pride. In a world where standards are blurry and constantly shifting, finding the demarcation line of moderation becomes all the more difficult.

The trick, I guess, is to try to give a hint of who you are, without opening up everything. Let people discover you as an individual and find the common threads of strengths or weaknesses. It’s even possible to show a side of oneself only to a few people in a given time. I think it is universally acceptable that no one lays the cards on the table at the first match. One has to find the right timing to show vulnerabilities. Committing oneself to a purely emotional state even before the start of anything might just be plain desperate.

In the end, the distinctive trait is an amalgam of personal (at times, catastrophic) encounters with people you deal with. It can happen that one trait emerges, like a beacon that will sum up the very best or worst trait in you. Most of the time though it’s the product of the choices you make as an individual. The worst ordeal is to be lost in an array of complexities that one has created.