Personality

The Things That We Love

Aug 1, 2022

—

by

Ron Johnson

in appreciation, Connection, Development, family, feelings, love, mindfulness, Personality, self-awareness

We all love different things. Our most recent book, What’s Your Temperament, discusses how our temperaments determine what we like, and more importantly, what we love. We made a distinct point that one of the defining characteristics that we have is our temperament, and implicit in each temperament is a distinct tendency to love something.…
The Independent Personality and Relationships

Jun 20, 2022

—

by

Ron Johnson

in communication, Connection, happiness, love, marital, men’s issues, Personality, positive psychology, relationships, self-awareness, social esteem

I see a lot of men in my office who are independent by nature, and I know a few more in my acquaintances and friendships. Independence is a truly remarkable personality trait that I admire and respect. Usually, independent men (and women, of course) cut their own lines in the earth, live by their own…
The Value of a Heart Attack

Jan 28, 2022

—

by

Ron Johnson

in Development, emotional maturity, family, mindfulness, Personality, self-awareness

I had a heart attack a couple of months ago, and it has been a very good thing for me. Let me explain. I’m not saying that I’m “glad” that I had a heart attack, and of course I wish I hadn’t had this event, but as I look at the larger picture, I see…
Love III: Not Loved Right

Nov 7, 2021

—

by

Ron Johnson

in Development, emotional maturity, feelings, love, mindfulness, Personality, positive psychology, relationships, self-awareness

This is the third of several blogs on love. Previously, I introduced this series noting that love is so important that it is undefinable, like other undefinable basic elements of life such as “feelings” which is so central to human existence and relationships, as well as time, distance, and mass, which are also undefined but…
Love II: Temperamental Love

Oct 30, 2021

—

by

Ron Johnson

in Development, emotional maturity, feelings, love, Personality, relationships, self-awareness, Spiritual

Three quarters of a century ago C.S. Lewis wrote The Four Loves, a book that has been quite popular in Christian circles over many decades of the 20th century. Lewis suggested that there are four different kinds of love, three of them decidedly biblical and the fourth implicitly biblical. He suggested that there is empathy,…
The Challenges of Honesty, Openness, and Truth

May 31, 2021

—

by

Ron Johnson

in communication, Development, emotional maturity, feelings, mindfulness, Personality, relationships, self-awareness, social esteem, Spiritual

I am no philosopher, but like all people, I delve into the medium and art of philosophy unavoidably as we all do. I am certain that philosophes could be bemused by my meanderings in their territory with my minimal training and understanding of such things. I am often bemused by people meandering into the realm…
Intention and Production

Jan 2, 2021

—

by

Ron Johnson

in communication, Personality, political, relationships, self-awareness, Spiritual

It is important to produce. It is equally important to intend to produce. But these two ways of engaging the world are profoundly different, a difference we might call spiritual. I conceive of these elements of psychological life on a spectrum with purpose in the center of the spectrum, something like this: Intention…………..……….……Purpose…………………………..Production ______________________________________________________________________________ This…
Wordiness, Wordlessness, and Wordness

Oct 10, 2020

—

by

Ron Johnson

in communication, feelings, Personality, relationships

Many people have trouble with words. In fact, it is my belief that every human being has trouble with words despite the fact that words are so central in human functioning and seemingly essential in interpersonal relations of any kind. We might say that the (scientific) difference between animals and humans is that humans have…
Good for Me; Bad for Me: II (corrected)

Jun 8, 2020

—

by

Ron Johnson

in emotional maturity, feelings, grief, mindfulness, Personality, relationships, self-awareness

This is the second of three blogs regarding the concept of something that is, quite simply, “good for me” or “bad for me.” In the first blog on the subject I noted that these terms, while valuable and important, cannot be fully defined. That having been said, you can recognize when something has either been…
You Value What You See

May 19, 2020

—

by

Ron Johnson

in emotional maturity, Personality, positive psychology, relationships, self-awareness

I don’t see much. Well, that’s not entirely true, but there’s lots of truth in it. An important part of this “not seeing much” is related to the fact that I am colorblind. Not seriously so, like people who actually don’t see colors at all and live in a kind of black-and-white world, as I…