On Assessments and Unfoldment
Yesterday in my office I went through an online questionnaire concerning customer satisfaction with an agency and a Microsoft related product. I had to evaluate the quality of the cooperation and the introduction of the product.
When some minutes later, in a pause, I looked up my private e-mails, I saw an e-mail of an old friend who sent me the link to an online questionnaire: She is going to a workshop on personal effectiveness, where colleagues/collaborators should give a personality assessment with some 60 questions or so. I went through the questions. It was strange for me doing this profiling, an abstract form of evaluating my friend, not only about the chocolate sides, but also on more difficult personality traits in cooperation and organisation.
Two days before, at home, I had seen the assessment which the military had done about my son who at the moment is going through a lieutenant formation, and the profile showed his strengths and weaknesses in leadership qualities, very similar to our perception, giving recommendations where he should focus on… Somehow I felt strange reading this assessment without further reflecting on it.
My wife mentioned a talk with our homeopath yesterday, who said that the qualities of homeopathic remedies, when used to qualify an individual, are somehow simplifying and reducing the complexity of the individual. A plant or a mineral is much less complex than a human being, and so the way to find a remedy is an approximation to the problem of the person.
When we meet a person, we perceive him or her in his/her totality, in a split second (the so-called “first impression”). When we focus on specific aspects, we tend to narrow the individual down with our categories to see his/her aptness as per our expectations or needs. It is important to keep the broader perspective of the whole, to feel the other as a seed, his potential development through time instead of just the present form.
My wife and I spoke at noon about a young friend. Seeing in her the profound potential, which will unfold through time spurs the unfoldment. It is fascinating to feel this dormant power. My wife said, she had missed this view of her deeper potential in her youth, and that it is a great encouragement, knowing that someone sees the beautiful tree in the seed and believes in it, and also expresses his/her trust in the vision. This is much deeper than any personality assessment.
A work of art in Girona, Spain, symbolising stages of unfoldment
