identity

Which trait do you most dislike in yourself?

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.

One of 24 questions in The Q&A here.

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On the record

Public figures who have answered a question like this elsewhere. Quoted from the source shown, not written for FLAPSS.

Read by field Everyone Science and medicine 1 Arts and letters 77 Politics and public life 6 Business and finance 1 Sport 1
Read by age Any age In their thirties 15 In their forties 13 In their fifties 22 In their sixties 20 Seventy and beyond 15
Keir Starmer
Vic, my wife, has over the years reduced my impatience, but anybody who has been in a traffic jam with me will know that she hasn’t completed the task yet.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 19 August 2023 source ↗

Caroline Lucas
I very often set my heart on things – and if they don’t happen, I’m not great at dealing with disappointment.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 20 April 2024 source ↗

Jack Dee
I can go for weeks without opening the mail. I can look at a letter that has just dropped through the letterbox, wonder what it is and then just shred it.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 9 November 2024 source ↗

Charlie Higson
I can be horribly smug and conceited, and yet always in the back of my mind is the thought that things could go terribly wrong at any moment.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 11 October 2025 source ↗

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