Chinese New Year was a short affair this year. Hence, I managed to get through this:
To get our way in life, we often have to come in contact with other humans. Some are pleasant, others less so, a handful may leave us feeling as though we've been shouting into the ocean with zero chance of getting a response.
'Surrounded by idiots' attempts to give us a way to categorise people into 4 main colors, based on general characteristics:
On a closer look, this color system feels like a simpler version of the popular Myers Briggs system which has 16 personalities.
My pet peeve with the Myers Briggs system is that it's great for understanding yourself, but less effective in trying to understand others because of the details it goes into - great if you're a scholar but not as friendly if you're trying to navigate the world.
Trying to phenotype people on the fly is especially tough when you're an ISTJ or INTJ. Erikson's system seems way easier to implement in the real world.
In summary, in a group of friends,
a RED is the ambitious prick of the group who is working on some big dream,
a YELLOW is that one person who can't seem to stop talking, and who asks questions only for the sake of answering it themselves,
a GREEN is usually the quiet person who seems to be there to make up the numbers, and
a BLUE is the one who's job is to split the receipt and let everyone know how much they need to PayNow.
You may want to note that most folks tend to have two main colors and green is the most common color.
Although I'm more incline to think that everyone displays every of those color, depending on their immediate circumstances, Erikson's system allows me to easily spot a dominant color in a person easily and quickly. This allows for faster adaptation to the person's preferred communication style.
Am I the Idiot?
Hovering between a Green and Blue, meeting a Red or Yellow tends to be a frustrating event.
But as mentioned above, if you want to get your way in life (and today's society), you'll need to learn to navigate its people.
We could remain passive and blame the world for being a bunch of idiots...or invert that view and learn to communicate like the idiots.
