Popular sanguine, perfect melancholic, peaceful phlegmatic, and powerful choleric — this is the concise list of personality types as described by Florence Littauer. I was initially very skeptical about this generalization. It felt too neat, too boxed, too convenient to capture the richness and complexity of human beings. But with time, I became a little more permissive toward it and accepted it in good faith.
The popular saying, if you can’t beat them, join them, slowly became real to me. The truth is, I was figuratively beaten by the avalanche of evidence I observed in my own life and in the lives of those around me. The patterns became difficult to ignore. I began to notice recurring tendencies, familiar reactions, and predictable responses across different people. What’s more, my faith, although it doesn’t major on personality as a doctrine, presents subtle indicators that point in that direction — the diversity of gifts, temperaments, and approaches to life.
Popular sanguines are often the loudest. They are the folks who always have juicy stories to tell — of course, with a lot of exaggeration and drama if they have their way. They bring life to conversations, laughter to gatherings, and spontaneity to otherwise predictable routines. Perfect melancholics, on the other hand, are like still waters. They look for depth and details in all their endeavors. They think carefully, analyze thoroughly, and often see things others might overlook.
Peaceful phlegmatics pride themselves on their calm. They usually look for the most peaceful way out of every situation. They are the stabilizers, the ones who soften tensions and keep things from escalating. Powerful cholerics, meanwhile, are like consuming fire. They burn with passion in all their involvement. To the powerful choleric, life is about purpose, direction, and being in control — that too, at all times if possible.
Generally, it’s not always easy for people of different personality types to get along. We become uneasy anytime we meet people who don’t think or behave the way we do. Sometimes, we even attempt to give them a makeover by adjusting their personalities just a little bit. Perhaps, we reason, it will be easier for us to like them that way.
But if you’ve ever tried doing that, you’ll admit that it isn’t easy to give people an attitude adjustment (unless you’re John Cena😅). And even then, it rarely works in the long run. What if those people were simply wired to reason and act that way?
A careful look at personality types reveals something beautiful — a natural blend. The weaknesses of one personality type are often balanced by the strengths of another. A good friend once joked that if the world were full of jumpy people like her sister, we would still be traveling to other cities by foot. I immediately understood the meaning behind the joke — all the time meant for inventing cars would be spent in endless chatter.
But then, has technology made our lives any better? Sure, it has — but not without side effects. In Productivity Is for Robots, Corey McComb notes that life in the present world is extremely stressful because we are gradually moving from being humans to being robots, all in the name of boosting productivity.
I sometimes feel that the popular sanguines among us are the ones holding us back from this quiet transformation. They remind us to laugh, to connect, and to slow down. The peaceful phlegmatics teach us contentment and balance. The powerful cholerics provide direction and momentum. And the perfect melancholics ensure that we think deeply and plan wisely. That’s more like our world — every personality has its place.
There is a problem anytime someone begins to see a particular personality as defective. It becomes even worse when the individual with such traits accepts this as true. I have seen wonderful people succumb to peer influence, only to take on undesirable traits in an attempt to escape their seemingly “defective” personalities.
But that shouldn’t be the case.
Every personality carries a unique contribution. Every temperament adds a necessary color to the human experience. The world doesn’t need replicas — it thrives on diversity.
Everyone deserves to remain an original.
Restpiration 