Highlights of Life

A few days ago, we went to a bookstore, and I happened to see a book titled, “The Birth Order Book: Why you are the way you are” by Dr. Kevin Leman. Wondering how birth order could affect who I am as a person, I rifled through it, reading bits and pieces.

I have to say, it’s a fascinating read. I regret not buying the book. But the little I garnered from skimmig it quickly, Dr. Leman outlined a few traits for various positions of the birth order.

First borns (or only children) apparently are the conscientious, high achieving, people pleasing, list making, responsible, academic ones. These are the ones who also in appearance are well groomed and well dressed, and very put together. Apparently many 1st borns and only children are pastors, presidents, CEO’s, MD’s, lawyers, architects, engineers, and accountants. They are natural born leaders. They are also natural born critics. They see flaws right away, and point them out. They are perfectionists by nature, and gravitate towards exacting professions, or ones with lots of leadership qualitities. They are industrious, and work hard to achieve success.

The middle born children apparently are a paradox. Full of contradictions, they tend to be almost the opposite of the 1st born child. They tend to leave home 1st and move away from family. This is the group, that while growing up in the middle, feel rejected by family, and instead end up reaching out to their friends, and even allowing frienships to take the place or role of what family members should hold. And because they grew up feeling rejected and in some sense also rejecting their immediate family, when they end up marrying, they apparently become THE MOST committed marriage partner (compared to other birth order spouse). In fact, Dr. Leman even points out how middle born children can be taken advantage of by their spouses, simply because of their sheer magnitude of commitment to their marriage.

They tend to be good negotiators, and good communicators, having grown up squished in the middle of the pack. By the same token, middle born children tend to avoid conflict, and may ultimately be poor conflict resolvers because they end up side stepping it all the time. They are independent and secretive. To me, it almost sounds like the middle born child is a rebel. Apparently, unlike the first borns who accept authoritarian figures and established authority, the middle born children tend to reject authority figures. They are in many sense of the word, a maverick.

The last born (or baby) of the family stays close to home, and is charming in personality, manipulative, outgoing, perceptive of others, and is all about themselves. They want attention, as well as acknowledgement that they have suceeded. Apparently this group tends to be poor with money management, and live life with such freedom that in many ways the term “life is a beach” can be applied to them. Life is full of adventure, and they may forget the serious and responsible duties of life, and these may fall to the wayside. They’ve always had someone looking out for them, and continue to behave in this manner even as an adult. Apparently the last born children make good salesmen.

This is of course, the only bare bones I got from skimming Dr. Leman’s book, and kind of wish I had bought it outright. It’s a fascinating read, and actually helped me to understand my siblings and their behaviors. Behaviors that are so far removed from me sometimes, it was almost incomprehensible and frustrating.

By the same token, Dr. Leman also writes about how role reversals can occur, where sometimes the 1st born (growing up in a hypercritical parental environment) ends up NOT taking on any 1st born characteristics, and instead the 2nd born ends up becoming essentially the functional 1st born (i.e. high achieving, conscientious, people pleasing, authority accepting etc). This may also explain why a particular in-law (who will not be named), has the same birth order as me, is actually so behaviorally different than me.

He also writes of the best marriage combinations, of which birth orders fit with which ones best. It’s a fascinating read, and even better cause the author is Christian. Full of insight, it truly captures much truth. My summary probably is much too skimpy and doesn’t do his book much justice, as he has chapters and chapters devoted to each birth order. He goes over the major character traits, and how it can be a strength as well as a flaw. Likewise, I’m recalling everything from memory….. and it is always much better to directly read the original source.

Wonderful book, to say the least.

When I read this article, I felt a little sad.  Sad that it’s so dead on accurate about much of the people living in Northern California.  It’s also overwhelmingly sad that how a group of people with such ample opportunties, and priviledges, and wealth could not see how clearly blessed they are, and ultimately lead a life that is not abundant and overflowing in joy. 

It’s interesting to see how money, and the love of money or the worry of money can sometimes impact people in spiritual ways.  It’s also interesting how the poor think they are always exempt from issues related to money, and spiritually they are somehow superior than people who are wealthy.  Likewise, the wealthy often think that money doesn’t have a hold over them either, unlike the poor.

I’ve seen people at both spectrums of wealth, and to be frankly honest…. one’s level of material wealth or assets have little impingement on how money and financial related matters can adversely affect one’s spiritual walk with God.  Having a miserly spirit, lacking generosity, always looking for free handouts, and being obsessive over money can occur regardless of the final sum of money held in the bank account.