Doers and Dreamers

I was having this short chat a few days back with a small group of people - one of whom was an HR Consultant, another with the background of Organizational Behaviour (OB) and yet another who was running psychometric tests for students. They were busy slotting people into different categories based on innumerable parameters that included everything between emotion and intellect, and how this profiling could help understand the behavioural dynamics of people. I am not so sure I understand the accuracy of psychometric profiling and the mapping of skillsets to job descriptions yet, but for an unthoughtful person like me, the world is divided very simply into the doers and the dreamers.

For the doers, the status of mind on a given day in one's life is derived directly from the status of the to-do list for the day. For them, all that matters at the end of the day is the number of ticks in the check-boxes of their to-do lists. The focus on getting a tick in the box is so sharp that all their conversations with others around them revolve around each item in the to-do list. Even all moments in a day that have no relation to this to-do list get completely intertwined with the completion status of the tasks in the list. Life is a straight line and any deviation from the straight line leads to frustration and anger.

On the other hand, there are the dreamers! The dreamers focus on everything that is in between the check-boxes. Most of their thoughts and energies are focussed on what is not the task, what is not the present and what is not practical. They enjoy the lack of focus on the task at hand and like to soak in every moment in its fullest. They do not like straight lines and look for distractions and deviations. They struggle badly in being up to speed with the doers.

I do not get along with either the doers or the dreamers. I guess I am somewhere in between. The doer and the dreamer. Wish someone taught me the right balance.