Back in the early 80’s, I could be quite the asshole.
Yeah, I know what you’re thinking, “Mr. Blue Sky, an asshole? Naaahhhhhh!”
No, I’m afraid it’s true. I wasn’t an asshole in general, but when I was at work and I had to be in charge, my assholiness would rival the creature in Pink Floyd’s The Wall. I was of the mind that, if I can do a task, then everyone should be able to do the same task. I would not accept any other way.
Example:
I worked in a grocery store. I was given the task of training a new cashier. She was a lovely, pleasant young woman of about 18 (I was 22). She just didn’t seem to be getting the hang of it. I was less than patient. I don’t remember the exact details, but she ended up crying and I got my butt reamed out by the boss.
Over the years I have learned patience. I have learned to accept that everybody’s ability to learn may not be the same as mine. I have people asking me computer questions at work. I patiently explain to the person what they need to know. When they come back a week later and ask the same question, I very patiently explain it again. Two or three weeks, when they ask again, well, you can see where this is going.
I now, very rarely lose my temper (except for the odd dildo in a parking lot 
). I have discovered that whatever it is, it will eventually go away.
I also didn’t like being an asshole. There was an incident in junior high where a group of what I then considered to be my friends were picking on a girl in class. I joined right in even though I knew it was wrong. I had been where she was and I didn’t like being called names. Yet, I couldn’t help myself. I could see the hurt in her face and I felt it too. I’d like to chalk it up to adolescent stupidity, but I know better. If I thought I could make it up to her, I would.
Your turn.
I used to be incredibly, painfully shy. But it didn’t come across to others as shyness - somehow I managed to put myself across as very aloof and arrogant, when actually I was just terrified of people and trying not to show it. My low self-esteem also meant that I didn’t try to make friends with people either - why would they want to know me? - which compounded that image.
I worked on it until I was able to hide it very well - perhaps too well. I’d be quaking inside, but I’d project an image of an incredibly confident (perhaps over-confident), friendly person. This was a success in lot of ways - I made a lot of friends and did a lot of things I would never have done before, and most of my new friends would have laughed out loud if I’d told them I was shy - but it was a real strain at times. It’s hard work, being someone you’re not.
Then I met Crusoe, and he gave me the confidence to be exactly who I am, and know that people would still like me, given the chance. I don’t try to hide my shyness anymore, either with a mask of arrogance or over-confidence, but I’m not unfriendly either. The people I’m getting to know these days tend to describe me as “very sweet”, and I’m happier and more at ease with myself than I can ever remember being.
I used to be unintentionally mean to people. I used to say things that I thought were clearly jokes and could not realistically be construed otherwise, but everyone would take them at face value and be insulted or hurt. I’ve learned to simply shut the fuck up until I know people better. I still slip up, especially if I’ve been drinking, but nobody’s perfect.
Shyness.
Talking before I think. That one is almost killed. Means I talk a whole lot less, but it’s better.
Talking way too fast.
I used to be egotistical and arrogant, now that I have overcome those negative aspects, I’m pretty much perfect.
Rage.
Pushed beyond a point, I’d have zero control over what I was doing or saying, it was like being on autopilot. I’d get into brawls, fling furniture, and once had to be taken to emergency at 2 a.m. because I put my fist through a glass tabletop and needed 22 stiches. I was 20 at the time, my dad had just died, I was messed up. Not an excuse, I know.
I’m 26 now, and Ive got the problem mostly licked. I still lose my temper occasionally, but nowhere near like what I used to be. Not even close.
Yay for me.
Seriously, I have eventually come to realise that I am an idiot when drunk. I have made a commitment to truly drink in moderation, so far it is working out well.
I am prone to anger. I’ve learned to suppress my rage, but that isn’t the same as not having it.
The negative personality trait I’ve overcome is having a negative personality.
I used to complain a lot. Constantly. About everything. I thought that when I was ranting, I was blowing off steam and amusing my friends. I was wrong on both counts. After something “rantworthy” happened to me, I’d dwell on it and let it fester, and then ranting about it just made it loom larger in my psyche, and sympathy from my friends made my gloom seem all the more righteous. Notice that the steam never “blew off”; I was kidding myself about my reasons for complaining. More importantly, while people did find some of my rants amusing, I realized that my relentless complaining and negative attitude made me, overall, a tediuous bore and an unpleasant person to be around. And selfish. Nothing is more egotistical then dwelling on self-pity.
When looking forward to meeting friends, I used to go through a mental list of things I could “commiserate” with them about. Now I think about sharing all the neat things that have happened to me, and cool things I’ve seen or read or heard. When something goes wrong, instead of internalizing it and feeling sorry for myself and mentally composing a rant about it, I shrug, and sigh, fix what needs fixing, and get on with other things. I’m not sure why I was letting every little negative thought completely take over my life when being happy throughout the day and pleasant to others is as simple as deciding to think about something else.
I think it was more of an epiphany than a process of self-improvement, though I can’t put my finger on the exact moment when I said, “Hey! I’m a miserable grumpy loser, and I can choose not to be.” Whatever it was, I’m glad it happened.
I have an AHA MOMENT when I was in eight grade.
Painfully thin and flat chested HA!, braces, a few pimples that weren’t as bad as some kids but still seemed like Mt. Vesuvius to me. And lest we forget the Peice De Resistance of any prepubescent gal: a home perm from your mother. There is no such thing as a home perm done well, my friends. Thanks MOM!
And the few nuns I had in school were constantly calling me by my brother John’s name. And he graduated years earlier he was and still is the Ultimate Dork. Yeah…good times, Sister Annunciata and Sr. Ann Dominic. Good times.
I was pathetic and I knew it. It didn’t help that I was a wanton tomboy who grew up in a neighborhood filled with only boys and could easily match them or kick their ass sports wise or with a well done elbow on a johnny pile. I was unmerciful when it came to johnny piles. I had no problems with boys except when it came to that stupid thing called LOVE, I was invisible to them. You bastards!
I was sitting on the playground with my group of pathetic dorky friends. None of us were popular because we lacked the social buttkissing skills and just weren’t as pretty and had farrah fawcett styled hair like *Those Girls. * And we didn’t have parents who actually had the word " Yes" in their vocabulary. Curse them! We were all the children of either older parents ( my best friend was the youngest of 15 and my mom introduces her parents together all those years ago.) or parents that were not spoiled hippy types.
We were watching Those Girls play and how everything they did was just perfect and, at that age, it was like being stabbed in the heart and stomach several times a day. It didn’t help that we all had to wear uniforms but they managed to wear their red/white and blue combo’s with panache, we the dorks dressed like flood victims. Those Girls never dropped their skirts on the playground to revel unsightly shorts to run amok in. They sat in clots of perfection somewhere talking about GodKnowsWhat, while we chased after one antoher flinging Barbies like a tomahawks at each other. We don’t know why the boys stayed away from us…we probably looked like some kind of outtake of Lord of the Flies ala Catholic School Girl Playground style.
One afternoon, watching Those Girls play perfectly on the playground, we were sitting around our friend Dawn, who had a cast on her foot and could not play. All of our attention was focused on Those Girls and just how Evil they are and how it is Just Not Fair that the boys liked them when Those Girls were just so darn * stupid* and threw a ball like a girl.
We were commisserating as only girls who have hormones running through their bodies at Mach 23 can and I remember thinking to myself ( and I might have even said it aloud, can’t remember.) " I am not going to look like this forever. Until I get better looking, I’ll focus on being funny." Erma Bombeck was my personal God then.
I’ve been a student of comedy and human foiables ever since and I have never been bored. Never.
It hasn’t been an easy ride down the road of life, ( within months of that ephinany my two best friends moved; we moved from the very popular neighborhood to Old People & Little Kids Neighborhood and my brothers were diagnosed with a horrid disease and my mom started back to work for the first time in 40 years and my grandparents were going down hill and she took primary care of them at night and oh…my dad had died when I was in 4th grade…on Xmas day. Baggage, yeah, I hadbaggage.* but I have never shied from anything obstacle placed before me in life more than most get before their 60, I’d say. and I can still crack a joke.
*high school was for me, to use the charming phrase, Just another bullshit night in suck city.
So. What negative personality trait have I over come? Home Perms, baby. Never. Again.
I have the same deal as Scumpup. I have the capacity to be a very angry person, and with a long list of good reasons. But I refuse to let it show. I know what it’s like to live with somebody who is perpetually angry and prone to fly into a violent rage at any time for any reason or no reason at all. I will not repeat that cycle. I will not poison my home with it. I will fight tooth and nail (internally) to make sure my wife never sees my temper, and that I never see it, either. I’ve only slipped a couple of times, but I try all day, every day to be cool, calm and collected. 99.8% of the time, it works.
I’ve learned to mask my looks of cold disdaine and haughty insollence towards those with inferior intellect and poor fashion sense.
I’m still working on the condescending superior smirking.
I’ve also stopped backhanding people who get in my way or make eye contact when I’m not speaking to them.
I’m still working on completely overcoming it, but I’ve largely mastered my shyness. Well, more accurately, I’ve overcome letting my shyness affect my life. While inside I am often still a quivering bundle of nerves, I’ve been able to put myself in a lot of situations where shyness wasn’t an option, and come through quite nicely. I still may be terrified of approaching people, but I’ll do it anyway, and pretend that it’s all second nature to me, and once I’ve taken that first step, the rest is pretty easy.
The funny thing is, people tell me I come across as very confident. I guess maybe I overcompensate for my shyness a little, but luckily, no one seems to find me arrogant. Yet.
#1 – I, too, have learned to be much more patient with people who don’t learn/think at the same speed I do. I’m still not great about it, but the past year has been a time of some solid personal growth. At the risk of sounding like an infomercial, I really credit a lot of said growth to my experiences with Toastmasters.
#2 – I grew up in a family where affection was expressed mostly via passive-aggressive insults. You know the whole schoolyard thing, where the boys who picked on you were the ones who liked you? That was pretty much my entire family – especially among the grownups, and especially on my father’s side. The sharper and wittier your retort, the better. Spend enough time in that environment and defense turns to offense: you learn to put the other guy down first, sort of pre-emptively, without even realizing what you’re doing. The problem comes when you try to relate to normal people, and discover that a necessary defense mechanism at home is bitchiness out in the real world. I was never so bad that I wasn’t able to date or make friends or anything, but I was worse than I realized. Luckily, I caught on to what was happening in college (where I lived away from home), and was able to learn to stop approaching other people with my defenses so high that I was actually on the offensive. I’m 34 now, but I still struggle with this at times – these days I mostly notice myself doing it when I’m around people I want to impress. I’m a fairly self-confident person, but those early life lessons can be hard to kick. 
And there’s always a little bit of a “culture shock” when I’m back around my family: my mom and brother never got quite as socialized as I did, and when I’m around them I have to remind myself that what seems uncalled for to me is often just how they are.