In the field of personality and character growth too, the law of polarity is constantly at work. e.g. a balance must be found between the conscious and unconscious, between individual and community, between masculinity and femininity. Every attribute exists in a state of tension and balance with an opposite characteristic in our personality. The greater the tension that can be tolerated between these qualities, the more creative and productive it will be. If the tension is dissolved by favouring one virtue and denying the other, the inter-play is lost and growth ceases. Even the value which was favoured becomes lifeless and sterile. Therefore faith in God needs to stand in the proper balance with faith in oneself; love of self must be allowed to exist in tension with love of others. The well-balanced mature personality will be able to handle both freedom and submission, independence and dependence. The mature person will know when to be an introvert and whent o be an extrovert; furthermore one must keep a balance between the physical and the spiritual; the intellect and feeling; sensation and intuition; knowledge and love; orderliness and spontaneity. We must be both choleric and melancholic; sanguine and phlegmatic; full of self-confidence yet fully confident in God, courageous but prudent. (p23)
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