I am the colour Orange. And no, I’m not talking about my skin colour. I’m talking about my personality colour.

Alex Jones described Orange as the “social colour of service to mankind.” Digging deeper, Carol Ritberger, in What colour is your personality? describes Orange personalities as caretakers and caring for other people is what makes their lives worth living – great personality trait. After a few self-interested acts recently I definitely prefer being a caretaker – it selfishly makes me feel happy without hurting anyone. Here are the negatives – Oranges are worriers, have fears of being taken advantage of, being manipulated and controlled and when stressed, they become erratic and suffer (harsh word if you ask me) from emotional outbursts.

What happens when you take a person who is intensely private (another personality trait) and have them start writing a blog? Gulp. All their fears are exposed. All their vulnerabilities and weaknesses and good and bad traits are out there in the world and no longer just in their thoughts or minds.

Why continue then?

One reason why an Orange would continue doing this is because there is a slight, small, tiny chance that maybe there’s another Orange (or possibly any other colour) out there who wants to share their ideas, thoughts or opinions and they cannot take that first step to share. Trust me though, if I could do this, so could you. It also shows that there is a difference between one’s personality traits and one’s characteristics. The Orange may never stop being a worrier or have certain fears – these personality traits will always be there. But the reactions and ways in which we deal with them can change. These characteristics allow us to adapt and change and grow the way we need to and we thus do not need to stay in our box, as comfortable as it is.

There are many times when I’ve thought about discontinuing my blog – I proved to myself that I could do it – I could be personal (okay, I’m not really that revealing but you know what I mean) so there is no reason to continue. But something keeps drawing me back – the one reason is the possibility that someone could read this and they are driven to accomplish something they really want to – the unselfish idea. The second reason is that it forces me to face the questions that I constantly think about – the selfish idea.

We all have personality traits that we do not like about ourselves and that are hard to admit to or accept. Or sometimes we have traits that we did not know we had. When they show themselves (normally directed to some undeserving person) it is hard to accept that those attributes belong to us. But they do. They make us human. They keep us humble and remind us that we can be better. We may never be able to be rid of them but if we understand when and why they show themselves we can try to ensure that we do not place ourselves in those situations again or if we are in those situations again we can try to learn to react differently.

We cannot always hide from everything no matter how hard we may try so we may as well enjoy discovering the colour of our personalities. What colour are you?