Do you want a steady, surefooted, confident Master in your life, or are you just a player?

Words that describe me include: perceptive; realistic; demanding; practical; hardened; judgmental; pragmatic; sceptical.

I am a compassionate person; I believe that I should do for others as I would have them do for me, and I know that friends help their friends. But with me compassion is just one side of the coin; the other being a side that also expects others to hold up their end of the bargain. So I help others but it is with the expectation that others don't take advantage of me or try to put one over on me. In short, I expect others to treat me as I treat them.

And for those people who do ask for help when they should have taken responsibility for themselves? This is the time when my more hard-edged side comes out. I am sceptical of people when they expect others to bail them out of trouble; if they got themselves into the bind, they should work their way out of the trouble. If it's an emergency, or if it's a friend who has been there for me when I have had hard times, I am there in a quick minute. But I am a discerning person and to me there is a big difference between an emergency and a self-inflicted wound. I just look at the facts: how the situation developed, how serious is the situation, and how my friend can or cannot get through things on their own. The history I have with the person and with similar situations will inform me whether this is or is not a time for me to get involved.

I also have some limits when it comes to being with people. Sure some people need to be with others all the time and seem to get recharged by helping out almost anyone else. But that's not me. I know that I do best if I spend a fair amount of time on my own. Not that I am a loner, just that time spent by myself is not wasted at all with me. I've come to understand that if I don't take good care of myself, eventually I'll be no good to anyone, including myself or others.

So my compassion is tempered by realism. My sympathy for people in trouble is balanced by a critical evaluation of how they got themselves to the place they are now. And I've learned to take good care of myself, so I have something to give to my friends or others truly in need.

Some people may see my practical style as lacking compassion. When my compassion is tempered, as it is at times by my discerning questions and careful consideration, it may seem to some that I have too much head and too little heart. When I use time and energy to take care of myself there will inevitably be some who see me as selfish and uncaring. But my approach is neither heady nor selfish. It is just me being me. My distinctive manner of having clear expectations for the relationships in which I will exert my energy is true to the core of me.

The truth is that most people respect someone who knows themselves and what they want. So even if some people don't get exactly what they want from me often they will leave with a deeper respect for what I stand for. My frank and honest approach may help someone to help themselves when they didn't think this was possible, and they wind up better off: they're out of trouble, they did it on their own, and they have me to thank for that and after all I was again, true to myself.

I am sometimes curious, sometimes content

More words that describe me include: tolerant; flexible; educated; self-aware; mainstream; proper; distinctive; uncertain; adaptable.

Like someone who can sleep comfortably on either side of the bed, I am equally at home with ideas and beliefs that you have held for a long time and with new ways of thinking and believing that grow out of my intellectual curiosity.

My sense of who I am and what my place is in the world around you rests on values and principles that are as solid as the ground I walk on. I’ve tested things, they work for me, and much of the time I am content to trust them, that is, until some provocative new idea slips in from a conversation, book or some flight of my active imagination.

Since I love to learn, I've always been teachable; I absorb new information, which means I am well-educated in things that matter to me. Sometimes my intellectual exploring will lead me back to where I started; the "next new thing" proves too shallow or impractical to me. But once in a while a new idea or belief will dislodge me from the ground I've stood upon; it is so compelling and persuasive that I step away from the tried-and-true and embrace this notion that is brand new to me.

Because I hold both solid beliefs and am yet open to new ideas, I am accepting of other people and other ways of thinking and believing. I am flexible enough to listen to something new and different, or something outside of my comfort zone; if it works for me, I'll take it in, and if not, I'll let it go. In this sense, I know who I am: I am neither closed-minded nor wildly open-minded, but walk somewhere near the middle of the intellectual road.

Not everyone will be thrilled by my flexible, middle-of-the-road ways of thinking and believing. A few people are so taken with flights of imagination into whatever is new that they might find my commitment to long-standing values and beliefs too confining, if not too boring. Oh well; so be it. They'll just have to be in free-flight without me.

Others are content with the ideas that have served them and their culture well; they're not excited by the prospect of moving on. And some people are afraid of new ways of thinking because they are somewhat fragile; they have trouble maintaining their current worlds and don't want someone like me pushing out the edges of their intellectual cosmos. So I am not surprised when my solid values sometimes make people distrust me as an explorer, or if my flexible and open mind sometimes gets me criticized by people who walk away from the very same explorations that I find so refreshing.

Many others find me trustworthy and therefore an attractive companion on the intellectual journey. They will appreciate the combination in me of open-mindedness and a commitment to the tried-and-true. In an intellectual climate sometimes dominated by the extremes of either wild innovation or dug-in traditionalism, my moderate views and my proper acceptance of a wide range of possibilities will be a distinctive and refreshing quality. Because I join my curiosity to strong foundational ideas and beliefs and practical solutions to problems, people trust my occasional explorations into new territories to be reliable, and not "something new for newness sake".

I am always accepting of others, flexible in my own intellectual commitments, well-informed in areas that matter to me, and comfortably aware of whom I am and where I stand.

I am sometimes steady and sometimes responsive

More words to describe me: adaptable; engaged; able to cope; passionate; perceptive; flexible; receptive; aware.

In some ways, I've got the best of emotional worlds. When emotions rise up from inside me or are brought forth from a conversation with a friend, I know how to engage them. I deal with sadness, fear, joy, anger - whatever comes up - in ways that are perceptive and flexible. I can adapt to whatever level of emotion is appropriate to the moment. At other times, I am able to cope with my emotions in a more reserved manner. Because I am aware of what does and does not make emotional sense in a particular situation, I will decide when it is an appropriate time to express my emotions and when it would be best to keep them to myself.

All of this gives me a rich emotional life. I am free to express my passions about certain subjects with appropriate people. But I am also emotionally adaptable; if the conversation needs to be more cerebral, I'll keep it "in my head" and talk calmly through whatever issue is on the table. This emotional awareness serves me well. I seldom get in over my head, either by opening up to the wrong person or by triggering someone else's emotions in a way they may not be able to deal with.

When it comes to dealing with emotions we all meet some people with whom we don't match well. I have a balanced approach to my emotional life. As such, those who are at the extremes are most likely to have a negative reaction to me. Those who live in their emotions may feel I tend to "live in my head" while those who go through life as an emotional rock may feel that I am a bit too "touchy feely" for their approach. And of course it is always possible that because I do balance my emotional approach to life I may misread others - we all do at times. So there have undoubtedly been those times when I have misread cues and stayed in my head with someone who hoped for a more open emotional approach or I may have opened up emotionally with someone who keeps their emotions bottled up. But these things happen and since I do have a good balance of being in touch with my own emotions and not being overly impacted by emotional swings, I undoubtedly am able to adapt.

Another potential problem is that as people get to know me well, they will discover that I have a great balance between emotional expression and emotional control. If they don't have this balance they may wind up envying me. They can't express feelings as well as me, or they are too often out of emotional control and resent me for my ability to cope so well with the very emotions that may trip them up.

Many people are grateful to find a friend like me who can stay in control when emotions verge on chaos, but who can also go into the tangle of emotions when it is safe and appropriate to do so. Because of my ability to engage them at whatever level they are comfortable, to adapt to whatever changes in emotion emerge in the conversation, and to cope so well with all of it - well, they'll be very glad they found me. I may, in fact, wind up as something of an emotional mentor. My awareness of the emotional temperature of a situation, my ability to adapt to either heat or cold, and my ability to cope with whatever winds up happening in the conversation could be models for them to follow as they come to terms with their own emotional worlds.