Know thyself

Socrates and Plato talked about the importance of knowing yourself. It's a worldly doctrine, sure, but I think it's wise to start where you are and understand yourself before seeking to understand more difficult things. 

Along that line of thinking, I decided to take a personality test. It's been a while since I took one and couldn't remember the outcome anyway. There are free online personality tests, so that wasn't the difficult part. The difficult part is deciphering the outcome. Below is the first site I used and the next link has the results.

https://www.16personalities.com/free-personality-test 

https://www.16personalities.com/infj-personality

The first test results I took with a grain of salt. The result is INFJ-T, with the T standing for "turbulent," which is a measure of how confident I am in my decisions. With my obvious list of regrets, I can see how I got the T. I really don't think I live my life with my feelings as my guide, certainly not as much as the results suggest. But there were things I recognized right away, such as one of the weaknesses being my sensitivity, such as when someone questions my motives, with the results saying that scenario is "the quickest way to their bad side." Indeed, I've seen that, recently, even. 

Another weakness is my extremely private nature, which prevents me from having healthy relationships (or any relationships, for that matter). That may be hard to believe after reading my blog and how open I am, but I don't share my blog with just anyone. In fact, I've only given this URL to two people.

The last weakness listed is burning out easily. That fits me quite well. I endure tasks and throw myself into them with abandon at times that threaten my peace of mind and wellbeing. Unfortunately, when I am confronted with a Sisyphean task, it's even worse because I don't recognize it as a trap with no real outcome.  

I honestly can't rate the strengths listed. I don't see myself in those ways. Or, rather, the people around me don't reflect those traits. Either way, there is a disconnect there. Again, in the relationship section, I can't say yea or nay about the results. In the friendships section, there is a bit of advice for people with my rare (the site says less than 1%) personality type: "Advocates must learn to meet others halfway and recognize that the kind of self-improvement and depth they demand is simply exhausting for many types. Otherwise, they may end up abandoning healthy friendships in their infancy in search of more ideal compatibilities." Most of what the friendship section says seems true. 

I'm not sure what to say about the other sections. I can see some truth in a lot of it. It's hard for me to say, "Yes, this is me," because it's hard to know ourselves from the inside. 

http://www.humanmetrics.com/personality

http://www.humanmetrics.com/personality/intj-type?EI=-43&SN=-19&TF=1&JP=31

The next test I took (above), labeled me as INTJ. I do consider myself to slide more to the rational rather than the emotional. That is how I traditionally work. There are moments, h0wever, when I let my feelings come into play, but usually after having a round of discussion in my head. 

Maybe because the description was more in-depth, but I tend to agree with the first personality test on more points than the last one I took. They're basically the same, except one was skewed more toward reason than feelings. If I got two different results from two different tests, then that reinforces the fact that it's sometimes very hard to know ourselves. I don't know if it's a necessary thing. You can only go so far into yourself before you get sick of it. I prefer to let my God point out weaknesses and to assess me. He created me. He knows me best. 

Overall, I was surprised by the insight of the first test. The detail was a little shocking. And then they go on to say they only know 5% of my personality type, leaving 95% unknown. Really? Seems like you know a lot. In any case, there seems to be a block in my head with stuff like this. It's like I don't want to know myself, like I'm not worthy of being known or the whole exercise is futile. I wonder what that says about me. 

I feel like I was spinning my wheels on this one. I did get some insight, which was surprising. One thing I can agree with is the fact that I am a very rare person. I have felt this my entire life. My ex said she had never met another person like me. I don't know if she meant that as an insult, compliment, or just an observation. But, I concur. I am a strange bird.

Thanks for reading!