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TYPE #2
THE CONCRETE UTILITARIAN
Self-Esteem
For Type #2, Self-Esteem comes from their engagement with others in play. Teammates and collaborators, bandmates and hobbyists. Their contribution to a craft, or an art, or an event, as well as a reciprocal engagement from others in that same play lets them know how they’re doing with others.
When type #2 has no playmates, he has no friends as far as he is concerned. When no one is around to be excited about the things he is excited about, then he is left to consider his loneliness, which of course, impacts his self-esteem. Depression for type #2 sounds a lot like “no one cares about this thing that I really like”.
Fortunately for type #2, their interests are usually varied enough that they can almost always find *someone* to play with, but when those relationships are singularly focused on that one niche or hobby, they leave something to be desired. If they’re not careful, Type #2 will develop many superficial friendships with a lot of different types of people based on interests, and will miss the more meaningful and deeper relationships built on more stable qualities than a current hobby or interest.
Self-Respect
Type #2’s Self-Respect is from something I call “consistency of persona”. this is a similar thing to Type #3’s Self-Confidence in “honesty” (We will discuss later) but has some unique traits of its own.
For Type #2, “Consistency of Persona” is the opposite of hypocrisy. In fact, hypocrisy is about the most shameful quality Type #2 could posses. With Type #2, their transparency and a willingness to “practice what you preach” is paramount to their Self-Respect. Now, that does not mean Type #2 are never hypocrites. In fact, they are quite often hypocrites, and suffer from a lot of shame spiraling that often manifests itself in drug use and general hedonism, but even in this lifestyle there is a certain level of transparency and honesty about why they do what they do, and what they believe about it. What you get with Type #2 is candor, and I have toyed with making “Candor” the official source of Type #2’s Self Respect (and I still may do that), but I’m not sure it *quite* catches the essence of what is at play here.
Self-Confidence
Finally, type #2’s Self-Confidence comes from their adaptability. The more loose the parameters, the better for Type #2. If you have a task that needs to be done, and don’t much care about how it gets done, then Type #2 is the man for the job. The more parameters you add to a job, however, and the more restrictive the environment, the less Type #2 is going to feel adequate to the task. As options diminish, so does the self-confidence and Type #2 will begin to feel increasing anxiety in the place of their confidence.
As more and more portions of Type #2’s life become restrictive to adaptation, and as general anxiety sets in, they may start looking to create problems that they can then solve in an effort to regain some of that self-confidence.
For example; I know of one Type #2 who had a successful business that was making him decent money (largely because he had outsourced much of the day-to-day operations to dutiful Type #1’s). The money was good, but it was all spoken for, and it left no room for this Type #2 to “play” or adapt, or anything. So, as that anxiety started to set in, and those depressive feelings came from lack of playmates, this Type #2 would hatch scheme after scheme, and then draw people into his plans with an infectious excitability. He was, of course, making most of it up as he went, and almost none of his plans panned out or were successful, but that wasn’t really the point for him. The purpose these schemes served was to have something that needed constant attention and adaptation. Despite the mess he was making with numerous business startups, and despite the relationships that were being damaged along the way (because people were being promised things that he could not deliver on) this Type #2 was actually feeling quite confident in his abilities precisely because he had projects that required create, on the fly solutions. To everyone watching, it looked like mania more than anything, but it goes beyond that in this case. This was a man if Self-Image freefall, doing what he could to regain at least one leg of that stool; Self-Confidence.
Quick recap on Type #2, the Concrete Utilitarian;
Self-esteem (relationship with others) is rooted in the perceived quality and quantity of their playmates
Self-respect (relationship to God/Higher powers) is in their “consistency of persona” and their “candor” about what they do and why they do it.
Self-confidence (relationship to self) is in their adaptability; their skill at navigating a fluid and sometimes volatile situation, and coming out on top.