The Pursuit of Grumpyness

Grumpy, it seems, is the new happy. Following years of getting a bad rap, mine and Victor Meldrew's favourite emotion is making a long awaited comeback.

According to research reported on the BBC news website, being in a bad mood makes us 'think more clearly.' Professor Joe Forgas, an Australian psychology expert who led the study, found that being cheerful can make you more creative, whereas feeling gloomy will make you more attentive and a careful thinker. In other words, feeling a bit down in the dumps once in a while is actually good for you and can help you make the right decisions. The ironic thing is, I could have told you all this back when my cousins and siblings were berating me with nicknames like 'Mrs Happy' and 'Mardy Bum.'

We have been bombarded for the last decade with the concept of positive thinking. Books like 'The Secret' brainwashed us into believing that by continuously thinking positively about a given situation, all potential obstacles would disappear. This was all well and good in the Noughties when the world was enjoying an economic boom. Everything and anything seemed within reach. We could afford to think positively all the time, and, if not, we would whack it on a credit card. Today, the new era of frugality and sombreness brought about by the recession, demands something a little less optimistic. It is now unrealistic to believe that positive thinking can solve all our problems - just ask someone who has recently been made redundant. Being grumpy is therefore the perfect antidote.

Don't get me wrong - I still believe it is desirable to think positively in certain situations. Believing that you're going to do well in a job interview is far more beneficial than walking in believing you're going to fail. However, there is a time and a place for both being negative and positive, and we should not ignore our feelings just because they are not particularly good ones.

It is therefore time to feel good about feeling bad. For one, feeling bad about something tells us that we need to bring about change in our lives. How else are we meant to know that a given situation is not right for us? Just like being scared is a warning that something poses a physical threat to us , I believe being grumpy is a warning that something poses an emotional one. You need to feel persistently bad over a period of time about your job to realise that you need to find a new one, for example.

Some of my greatest decisions have come following long mardy spells. The Great Grumpiness of 2006 led me to move to Dubai in early 2007. Had I sat and done what the positive preachers instruct us to do and tried to make myself believe that everything was great, I wouldn't have moved. The reality was, Lincoln was not right for me and my job was boring. I was miserable and no amount of positive thinking was going to make me feel better about the situation because what I really needed was change. I left and everything worked out for the best. Being grumpy gave me the kick in the right direction.

So from now on I'm not going to feel bad about feeling down. I'm going to revel in it, reach for the chocolate, pop open the bubbly and celebrate the fact my next big life changing decision is probably on its way.

Who Do You Think You Are?

This week I revisited an area of Psychology that has always fascinated me – personality typing.

The idea that people, with all their complexities, quirks and differing behaviours, can be classed according to different personality types used to baffle me. I for one hate to be pigeon holed and like to think I’m unique (which, considering, it is probably a good thing if I am). Is it really possible that we’re all more similar than we think?

When I was at university, I didn’t have time for typing. That was until I stumbled across the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. The psychometric assessment, which was based on theories made by the famous psychologist Carl Jung, measures how individuals perceive the world and make decisions.

Without getting too technical, the Myers-Briggs typology model regards personality type as similar to left or right handedness: individuals are either born with, or develop, certain preferred ways of thinking and acting. The MBTI sorts some of these psychological differences into four opposite pairs, or ‘dichotomies,’ with a resulting 16 possible psychological types.

The reason I’ve come to find this measurement the most reliable of personality tests is because I used to administer it on my family and friends, and see what they thought. Every single person who has been unlucky enough to fall prey to my assessment concedes that their result fits them perfectly.

I, for one, am an ENFP (the champion or inspirer). One website says: Like the other Idealists, Champions are rather rare, say two or three percent of the population, but even more than the others they consider intense emotional experiences as being vital to a full life. Champions have a wide range and variety of emotions, and a great passion for novelty. They see life as an exciting drama, pregnant with possibilities for both good and evil, and they want to experience all the meaningful events and fascinating people in the world. The most outgoing of the Idealists, Champions often can't wait to tell others of their extraordinary experiences. Champions can be tireless in talking with others, like fountains that bubble and splash, spilling over their own words to get it all out. And usually this is not simple storytelling; Champions often speak (or write) in the hope of revealing some truth about human experience, or of motivating others with their powerful convictions. Their strong drive to speak out on issues and events, along with their boundless enthusiasm and natural talent with language, makes them the most vivacious and inspiring of all the types.

I'll go into more depth another time. But now over to you.

What's your type? Take the test and let me know what you think!

http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp
or
http://www.personalitytest.net/cgi-bin/q.pl