Myers-Briggs But with K

At the very beginning of the month, Angela wrote about the Myers-Briggs test.  She mentioned that I am an INFP, but these things can change over time.  I just literally retook the test minutes ago, and I'm still firmly an INFP.  The last time I took the the test I was almost entirely on the Introverted scale over Extroverted and more on the Intuition than Sensation, but I was basically 50/50 when it came to Thinking and Feeling, and 50/50 when it came to Perception and Judgement.  I guess that means I'm well balanced?  I learned last year that only approximately 10% of the total population are INFPs.  I'm basically a living unicorn.

I had an instructor give us the test and then group us according to the main personality traits.  She put all the INFPs together intentionally and gave everyone an apple, then asked each group to describe it.  Every other group described their apples as:  round, red, juicy, firm, with/without stem, etc.  Here was what we came up with:  Fall, apple cider, galaxy of stars on the skin, apple pie, changing leaves, etc.  A direct quote from another group as we were reading off our list:  "WTF is wrong with you people?"  INFPs tend to see the world differently, and most everyone else doesn't get it.  We are more misunderstood than emo culture...or maybe most emo culture is derived from INFPs.

I wanted to write about this today because I was thinking about the Strengthsfinder test Angela and I took in college together.  I believe we both got the same trait as our top trait, but Angela wanted to sit at another table and ditched me that day.  Next Saturday, I'll be taking a spiritual version of the Strengthsfinder test, so I'm kind of rehashing these things a little bit.

Introvert

I want to talk about labels.  I read something yesterday that got me thinking a little bit.  I looked through a picture gallery that was all about being an introvert.  Of course I could very much relate to most of the content.  Then I scrolled through some of the comments because sometimes I hate myself.  Seriously, comment threads on popular public websites are the worst.  But I found the unicorn of internet comments.  It was a thoughtful, well reasoned observation that I didn't agree with but also didn't make me mad.  So I thought it would be a good thing to blog about because I didn't want to comment and risk getting into an argument with some moron. 

The comment was about how calling someone an introvert isn't helpful because they will then act like an introvert and never learn to be social.  It makes sense in a way because if you really don't want to do something and then find out you have an excuse not to do it, you would be happy.  But I don't agree at all because in high school, I had never heard the term introvert and that didn't stop me from being quiet and awkward. 

I have found that label has helped me be better at socializing.  Because I know that it's my nature and not a way I'm choosing to be, it helps me accept myself which makes me more comfortable around people.  When I was younger and trying to talk myself into being better, I would make some small progress.  Then, inevitably, someone would say to me "why are you so quiet?" and I would think "Well, now I'm back to square one, I haven't improved at all" and then feel bad about myself.  By the way, NEVER ask a quiet person why they're quiet.  It's not like they're gonna suddenly come out of their shell just because you brought it up.  Although if someone asked me that today, I would just shrug and say "That's just who I am" because that's the truth.  I have accepted my skills and abilities and being social is not one of them.  Then I can laugh about how awkward I am because it's genuinely funny. 

So having a label has helped me have a better attitude about myself.  For example, if I went to a party and say I talked to 2 people and then sat awkwardly on the couch the rest of the time.  Before, I might have left feeling like a failure because I spent so much time awkwardly not engaging with anybody.  But now I walk away thinking "Wow, I talked to 2 whole people!  That was hard for me and I'm really proud of myself!"  I don't have to compare myself to other people, I can be proud of my personal achievement. 

My Son is a Cat

The evidence has been mounting for years that my 2.5 year old, Marshall, is a cat in a human body.  It actually began almost 6 years ago when I first got pregnant with Bishop.  I had a dream that I gave birth to a half-kitten half-baby.  I told Kris about my weird dream and she told me she also had a dream that my baby was half kitten but the opposite half as my dream.  Then Bishop was born, very much human, and I kind of forgot about it for a while.  Then Marshall came around.  He came into this world feet first which stressed EVERYBODY out but, you know, a cat always lands on its feet.  And Marshall definitely landed on his feet.  He has always been the absolute cuddliest baby, like a kitten.  When he whines, it sounds like meowing.  And I'm not talking about all the times he actually pretends to be a cat.  Needless to say, he is very good at that. 

He has climbed into my clean basket of warm laundry a number of times.  He likes to stand in the doorway while he decides whether to go in or out so I can't close the door until he decides.  He is very stubborn.  He likes to hide under pillows.  He enjoys climbing.  The older he gets, the more cat-like he becomes.  He just tried to knock his bowl on the ground while I was typing this.  When I scold him, he looks adorable instead of ashamed because he knows exactly how cute he is. 

Yeah, I may be looking for clues that prove my point, but not always.  A lot of times these behaviors come out of nowhere.  He's mysterious like that. 

He's even cuddly in his sleep

The Essence of Who We Are

I thought I would start off blog month with a light subject: personality!  It's weird that that word seems so frivolous.  When I hear 'personality', I think of choosing colors and lattes and sorting people into Hogwarts houses.  But it's the essence of your person-hood, the undefinable thing that makes you a person in this world.  It's heavy shit if you think about it.  Which I do.  All. The. Time.

I've been really into Myers-Briggs typology lately.  It was kind of a snowball effect.  I found a free test and made John take it because I wanted to know what his type was and then because I visited that website, my google homepage kept showing me articles related to MBTI, which I clicked on, which then caused google to show me even more articles.  Now half my news feed is blog posts about how your type deals with getting your toe stubbed in a crowded room while giving a speech to 50 people.  Okay maybe not that specific, but I'm not exaggerating by much.

If you're not familiar with Myers-Briggs types, I'll give you the short version.  There are 16 types based on 4 aspects of personality.  I'll use my type as an example since this is my blog and myself is the subject I'm most knowledgeable about.  My type is INFP which stands for Introvert, Intuitive, Feeling, and Perceiving.  I guess Intuition gets to be 'N' because Introvert got there first.  The opposite would be ESTJ which stands for Extrovert, Sensing, Thinking, and Judging.  There is tons on information on the internet if you want to go down that rabbit hole.  I'm just gonna focus on me for now.

Kris is also an INFP but she's borderline INTJ so we're still pretty different.  Basically an INFP is 'they have a ton of personality and a million ideas but good luck getting it out'.  That's actually what makes us ideal writers.  We are very hard to get to know but awesome at putting our ideas in writing.  I remember wanting to be a writer as early as 5th grade and I really sucked at it back then.  At some point, I realized it was a somewhat impractical profession and tried to move on but I've still never settled on anything else.  Recently I found out that choosing a career is actually a big problem for INFPs which makes me feel a lot better.  I also found out that INFPs are the most likely out of all the types to stay home with their children.  I wonder if that is a conscience decision or if it just kinda happens by default.  I just started having kids and hadn't established a career yet so I thought 'I might as well just stay home with them'.  I am glad I got to do it though.  I guess it was a little of both: default and choice.

I think that's enough about me for now.  I will definitely talk more about types in later posts.  I know a few other people's types and I can talk about them.

So.... I will blogging every day this month.  Hopefully I can keep up.  I used to do it at lent, so this should be easy.  Kris will be joining me to.  Can't wait to see what she writes about.  She told me it's something big!