7. The Enthusiast / Epicure. *

Peter Pan

Famous 7’s: Peter Pan, Ram Dass, Tom Robbins, Thoreau, Kurt Vonnegut.
Blog 7’s: Dolce, Dusty Muffin, vapour, marijayn.

Focal Point of Attention: Pleasant options
Emotional Centre: Gluttony
Higher Emotional Virtue: Sobriety
Mental Centre: Planning
Higher Mental Virtue: Work
Sexual Focus: Suggestibility
Social Focus: Social sacrifice
Pathology: Narcissistic

Family History.
7s have pleasant memories of their childhood with very little bitterness. Even with an objectively bad scenario such as divorce, there is little residue of hatred or blame because even as children, 7s were able to shift their attention towards positive thoughts or activities. 7s tend to favour their mother over their father.

Habitual preoccupations:

General.
7s move towards people in an attempt to charm and disarm with pleasantry. They seek out natural ways to stay high and seem to remain eternally young, often exercising regularly and eating healthily in order to stay well and active. 7s seldom experience fear and tend to be light-hearted and sunny. They are gregarious, talkative, engaging and like Peter Pan; eternal children addicted to planning and play. 7 is also the point of Narcissus, the youth who fell in love with the image of his own face reflected in a pool. He was loved by the nymph Echo but too absorbed in the mirror of his own splendour to hear her calling his name. Although a little narcissism is healthy - we all need to recognise our unique value and worth – difficulties can arise when we become so convinced of our special value that we fail to hear the suggestions of those who mirror back the objective truth. 7s are convinced of their own excellence and they seek environments and people who will support their worth. They have sensitive tastes and want to sample the best that life can offer. 7s like to keep up their spirits; they want adventure and keep their expectations high. They have the chemistry for peak experiences, almost as though champagne were running in their veins instead of blood.

The 7 worldview is epitomised in the counterculture revolution of 1960’s America. Faced with going to war and the prospect of meaningless work, the flower children dropped out and turned to simplicity, creating an idealised concept of what society could be. However as the revolution progressed, the shadow side of this worldview emerged; one in which attitudes changed from an appreciation of the uniqueness of the individual to a kind of narcissistic preoccupation with the self.

7s are buoyed by a belief that life is unlimited and that there are always interesting things to do. As far as they are concerned, if life is not adventurous, it’s barely worth living and they see no point in getting hung up when they can move on. 7s have a habit of keeping multiple options open and only making commitments if they can have back-up or contingency plans. Agreement for a 7 is not much more than what feels right at the time. If plan A gets rained out, they will have plan B as a back up and if that feels sticky, they will move to C. Planning for the future along the lines of contingency options is intended to enhance life’s pleasures by eliminating the problems of boredom and pain. 7s are very creative problem solvers who are able to find the correct fit of associations between what appear to be antagonistic points of view.

7s are the most optimistic of all the Enneagram types. They are anti-depressive people for whom work is intermingled with imagination and mental play. They need to keep their mood up and will work until the moment they begin to tire, at which point they will switch to something else before boredom sets in. They can work endlessly and prefer to handle three or four jobs at one time. However, their projects rarely move ahead single-mindedly because each project is sandwiched between pleasant things to do. From an outsider’s perspective, a 7 may seem to be scattered between too many things and ideas but as far as the 7 is concerned, each insight and approach is bound up with all the others. 7s don’t like going too deeply into any one thing and prefer to be fascinated by many things at the same time. They have great difficulty in limiting themselves to a single project or pursuit because of the narrowing of attention that will bring about. 7s are attractive and want people to adore them; they often raise the expectations of others only to disappoint them because they grow bored or become distracted so easily.

Attractive Environments.
7s are often editors, writers or storytellers. They are theoreticians of a new paradigm, planners synthesisers and idea gatherers. 7s are idealists, futurists and world travellers. They seek the very best in food, wine and ideas. In a university, the one calling for inter-disciplinary studies is probably a 7.

Unattractive Environments.
7s will seldom be found in routine work that does not carry the spirit of adventure. They will not be comfortable in a job with a predictable routine or under a critical boss. Lab technicians and accountants are seldom 7s.

What 7s should be aware of:

* All information taken from The Enneagram by Helen Palmer.