People are surprising and... there are no surprises

Following on from my last post I thought I would look at how people surprise us - and not.

Of course it is possible for us to behave 'out of character' and we can be surprised by how others behave. But I would argue that mostly we behave in character, even when we behave out of character. What do I mean by this?

What the Enneagram does is reveal the structure of personality, that it has a structure and so is not entirely random. We may not choose our personality type but each personality comes with a group of traits and attitudes that form a pattern of behaviours. Even when we supposedly act 'out of character' that behaviour is often in fact foreshadowed by our previous behaviours.

For example, take Nines who are easygoing, accepting and conflict averse. Part of the reason they are this way is that they deny their anger - they may not even realise that they are angry. In this way they are able to be accepting and easy-going. However, no-one is able to deny their emotions forever so there are times when their anger explodes - often inspite of themselves. At this point many people are shocked (including the Nine his/herself) as they often don't see it coming and yet... is it really surprising? Not if one understands the structure of their personality. The sudden flaring up of anger is in direct response to their denial of it. This is not so much acting 'out of character' as part of their pattern - denial of anger until it explodes to the surface.

Does this mean we should therefore never be surprised by someone's behaviour? No. I personally believe that we all have the capacity to behave 'out of character' and, occasionally, we do. It's just that mostly we don't.