How to learn more about yourself :D

Achtung; Like all things in social science, heck, in all human related studies, this is in no way a perfect generalization that can be applied to anybody. Take this with a pinch of salt, or whatever spice of your choice :D tl;dr: Jangan perasan >o<

Think about how you have conversations with your friends, your parents, even your teachers or colleagues at work. There is always an exchange of information going on, and through this process of exchanging information, you can actually learn a lot about the person(s) that you're communicating with, and vice versa ^o^

You can also learn a lot about yourself.

In most conversations, there is always an action and a reaction. Simplest example would be a question followed by an answer. It is from the way these actions and reactions are carried out that we can garner the most information :D It might sound really difficult, or weird, since it's like analyzing each other like psychiatrists do, but really, everyone does this all the time ^o^

That's the beauty of humanities and social science, everybody does it, all the time. It's just that a few people thought about using made up words to describe everyday occurences, and suddenly they sound really smart because nobody really understands what they're saying :B

This is why I absolutely hate the requirement to use 'scholarly language' when writing academically. It's such a bunch of bullshit and is totally elitist in nature. If I ever enter academia, this is the one thing I'd love to be able to change. I know it's as impossible as trying to improve Malaysia's education system, but it's just against my principles (chewah).. argh I'm getting off tangent +_+

How do you learn things about yourself from the conversations you have? Here, have a few simple examples;

•  When you ask someone a question and after they answer, or do you comment on their answer, do you answer your original question to give your own information?
• When someone discloses things about themselves, do you ask for more information/clarification, or do you add your own relevant information?
• When someone asks you a question about yourself, do you end your answer with a question asking the same thing about them?

I'm sure you can see what I'm getting to from these three questions. My theory is this, if you tend to want to add more of your own information in the conversation, there are three possibilities; 

1. Either you want the other party to know more about you (interview, trying to impress someone, trying to market yourself, basically), or 
2. You're not really interested in the other party but are still comfortable disclosing information about yourself (either you're self centered or the information is something you're proud of), or
3. You have this desire to prove that you're just as important as everyone else, either to everyone, or to yourself.

On the other hand, if never add more of your own information to the conversation, and instead ask more about the other person, there are also three possibilities. I was going to make a list like the above, but they're basically opposites =_= basically, you're more interested in getting to know the other party, or are just uncomfortable with sharing your personal information (with said party, or in general).

However, this isn't the only things that you can learn about yourself from those three questions! There is an almost infinite amount of depth for such analysis @o@ For example, the way you act or react could also be caused by how you want to humor the other party. Not too long ago, I was talking to one of my friends that I know have the need to vent out frustration, so I asked for more information about what happened, and what made my friend so upset, instead of adding in my experiences regarding such problems. So it kinda depends on the context of your conversation as well.

But wait, there's more! If you think about it, the way I humor my friend also indicates in a way what type of person I am, since I am more likely to sympathize and let my friend voice out all the frustration, it shows that I'm pretty tolerant to be able to withstand someone whining at me. It also shows that I took the trouble to actually understand my friend's personality and did what would help the most, let my friend vent ^o^

Although adding my experience regarding such problems after my friend vented frustration sounds at first like a very selfish thing to do, it is actually a very powerful technique that could be used to console people. Some people, after knowing that other's have suffered the same (or worse) fate as them, feel better, since got 'gang'. Herd mentality is a very ingrained feature for most humans ^_^ Safety in numbers :D

And did I know about this technique? Absolutely! Did I consider using it? Nope! I'd be crazy if I contemplated everything I just typed up till now during a conversation =_= It all happens automatically, and this automated reaction is guided by my personality, which is what we have just discovered from this exercise *o*

So, I'm a tolerant person that's rather reserved and takes the trouble to understand some of my friends, and during the days where I have the mood and the time, I go out of my way to make them feel better... so I can make insanely long blogposts *_*v

...maybe I should've been a psychology student... nah. Thanks for reading ^O^/