If I don't want what you want, please try not to tell
me my want is wrong. Or if I believe other than you, at least pause before you
correct my view.
I do not, for the moment at least, ask you to
understand me. That will come only when you are willing to give up changing me
into a carbon copy of you.
I may be your spouse, your parent, your offspring, your
friend, your customer, or your colleague.
To put up with me is the first step to understanding
me. Not that you embrace my ways as right for you, but that you are no longer
irritated or disappointed with me for my seeming waywardness. Then, in
understanding me, you might come to prize my differences, and, instead of trying
to change me, preserve and even nurture those differences.
Adapted from Please Understand Me by
David Keirsey and Marilyn Bates.
Prometheus Nemesis Books, 1978