The question
Which trait in yourself do you like least?Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
The Guardian's The Q&A has retained this Proust-derived prompt from at least 2007 through 2026, and ABC independently put it to the Obamas in 2011.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Procrastination.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 28 October 2023 source ↗
If I had a trait that I truly deplored, I would work to erase or modify it…Probably, a lack of discipline. (Though people think that I write quickly, & don’t revise, quite the reverse is true.) To myself, I work very slowly & painstakingly, & am often frustrated by accomplishing so little. My friend Margaret Atwood has said that in the late afternoon she is likely to be overcome by a feeling of desperation that she has accomplished so little that day, & this is a feeling I share, often. It seems that I waste most of my time gazing out the window here at my (overgrown) garden; & when I am in Berkeley, where I spend about one-third of the year, I am forever gazing out the window toward the San Francisco Bay & a continually changing, always-beautiful sky.
My tendency to skip meals.
Very impatient, bossy, always late.
I get distracted by anything and everything, so all my projects finish just before the deadline. Sometimes, it’s a bit too tight.
Warm, intelligent, accommodating.
That I am a terrible actor.
A forensic scientist.
I’ve never got through Ulysses.
Good self-esteem.
About five years ago, I was in a play that was an unmitigated disaster. I had to rally the troops and go out every night.
Fearne Cotton, Christine Baranski, Tina Fey, Mary Tyler Moore, Pauline Black, Takashi Murakami
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