Developing a Positive Personality

DEVELOPING A POSITIVE PERSONALITY It is a positive personality in which the lofty desire to search for the truth awakens. Only a person of positive character and positive thinking finally arrives at the truth. Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) was a famous French thinker. He was a champion of people’s rule over monarchy. He famously remarked: “Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.” (Social Contract, 1762) However, man has another problem, which perhaps is even more severe than this. It is the problem of conditioning. Every person lives in a particular environment. Therefore, every person’s mind is conditioned by his environment, depriving him of right thinking. As a result, people do not remain capable of thinking naturally. Given this conditioning problem, Rousseau’s statement can be better stated: “Man was created on divine nature, but I see him psychologically conditioned.” When a child is born from his mother’s womb, he looks like the epitome of innocence. It seems as if an angel has assumed human form. At the time of birth, man has a pure mind. His thinking is natural thinking that should be the case in reality. However, man is a social being. He has to spend his entire life in a society made by others. Because of this, his mind receives external influences almost every waking moment. This is called ‘conditioning’. This process