Let me start by saying that I do not have good handwriting. As far back as I can remember, my writing was never neat on paper. Fast forward to my teenage years in school, it had gotten worse. By the time I was in university, my writing was barely intelligible in some of my school notes. I had to remind myself to slow down and intentionally write clearly so that it would appear readable.
Now why is this so? Why do some people have good handwriting, and others don’t?
I did give it a good thought, and here’s my take on it.
1. The personality of a person dictates how their handwriting will appear
Our personality influences how we write and the type of handwriting we produce. Consider below.
a) Methodical, patient, artsy
A person of this nature will have a higher tendency to write slower and neater, within the lines of the book and evenly spaced.
Some may enjoy the art of producing a nice written font even, with cursive styles that are pleasing to the eyes.
b) Impulsive, impatient or having lower attention span
Someone who doesn’t like to be sitting for long periods of time, easily distracted and who prefers taking action over waiting may have worse handwriting. Their words may be messy, having a wavy pattern that goes up and down, and a non-uniform appearance.
2. Our thoughts run faster than the speed of our hand
A person who has many thoughts inside their head or thinks of ideas fast may have bad handwriting, the theory being that they are producing these thoughts at a faster rate than what their hands can write down onto paper. What is produced may be hastily written words that do not appear the best.
They may be brilliant people in their field of work, doctors, professors, physicists, or entrepreneurs and business people. They think a lot more than what they can write, and as long as their words are readable, it works fine for them. In this sense, maybe some bad handwriting may be a trait of intelligence.
This is my opinion, what do you think?
If the above is true, we may be able to have a quick assessment of a person’s character traits just by looking at their writing.
In my nursing profession for 44 years before my retirement 8 years ago, I had seen all kinds of handwriting of the doctors. Most Medical Officers’ handwriting were okay. However, for some Specialists, eg. Consultants and Surgeons, their handwriting were terrible. Sometimes, they themselves could not even read their own hand writings when we asked them! However, there were a few of them could write very nice and neat in the patients’ note. It was really a struggle to read bad handwriting on the patients’ note of some doctors!