Attributes of an amiable and magnetic personality !

A curiosity suddenly aroused in me today – “What defines a human being?” I started jotting down all the words commonly used to define attributes of a person (along with their dictionary and contextual meanings) beyond physical structure and external beauty. I am sharing outcome of my curiosity research along with my commentary in this blog.

Character: An inherent complex attribute that determines a person’s moral and ethical actions and reactions. Before we go into further details of ‘Character’, let us understand ‘ethics’ and ‘morality’ as well.

Ethics are principles of right and wrong as accepted by an individual, social group or society in general. Morality on the other hand is a person’s distinction between right and wrong; bad or good conduct. Whereas ethics represents definition of good or bad as accepted by the society; morality or personal value-system defines the principles of right and wrong as believed by an individual.

Let us also look at another commonly talked attribute – ‘Personality’.

Personality: A complex attribute that encompasses behavioral, temperamental, emotional and mental attitude to characterize a unique individual.

Attitude: A complex mental state involving beliefs, feelings, values and dispositions to act in certain ways. Extrapolating attitude– positive thinking is defined as strong belief in a favorable outcome. and only thinking as well as talking about how to make the positive outcome happen. You cannot achieve anything by just positive thinking; but you can achieve everything  much more and better with positive thinking than negative thinking would. 

Virtue: The quality of doing what is right and avoiding what is wrong.  What is wrong or right for you today; might not be so tomorrow. A virtuous state of mind always directs people to follow the path of good over bad.   

Behavior: The action or reaction of something under specified circumstances

Personality is who we are, what you do and say- when everyone is watching; character on the other hand is who we are, what you do and say- when no one is watching.

In my research of the most admired quality of successful leaders, 'Integrity' takes the top honor. Integrity is defined as moral soundness, yet my belief is that Integrity is a quality which if exists -  guarantees other claimed qualities of a person. If someone says to have determination, courage, goal - integrity would mean that he does. One should not compromise integrity for anything. If integrity is lost, other qualities would loose their value.

My takeaway from this little research is that to lead a life of righteousness; one must have integrity so other qualities are genuinely guaranteed. To be integral, a person's personality should match his character.  Once that alignment happens, and person chooses life of virtuousness and truthfulness - the person is likely to be in peace with himself. That internal peace will also manifest positively  in a person's attitude and behavior - creating an amiable magnetic personality.